(MOSTI eScience Fund, 03-03-01-SF0040)

Current resources of fuels are mainly of fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas, providing more than 85% of all the energy consumed in the world. However, these resources are rapidly depleting. As such, the need for sustainable and renewable energy becomes more and more evident. Cheaper, cleaner, abundant and more reliable alternative energy sources need to be found to replace these depleting and expensive resources. As an important producer and exporter of agriculture products, Malaysia is very fortunate to have abundant sources of biomass. The oil palm industry alone generated more than 30 million tonnes of biomass in the forms of empty fruit bunches (EFB), trunks and fronds yearly. Of these, approximately 15 million tonnes were EFB. EFB is the fibrous cellulosic biomass consisting mainly of 63% cellulose and 28% hemicellulose. This biomass is composed of nature’s most ready energy source, sugars.

Since cellulose and hemicellulose in the EFB are the primary components and the most abundant form of biological material available in nature, EFB could be an attractive energy feedstock to the conventional energy sources in Malaysia. Alternatively, they can be hydrolyzed into simple sugars or transformed into chemicals and other value-added products such as ethanol, citric acid, xylitol, furfural, furan, resins and furfuryl alcohol. Biotechnology approaches either by random, site-directed mutagenesis or genetic manipulations are few of the commonly employed strategies for enhancement of enzymatic activity. An indigenous Bacillus strain was evaluated for its potential as a biological agent to bioconvert the otherwise useless by-product of palm oil industry.

There are two objectives for this project:

1. To obtain bacterial mutant(s) with improved cellulolytic and xylanolytic properties via radiation mutagenesis; and

2. To evaluate the bioconversion of oil palm empty fruit bunches into sugars by improved bacterial mutant(s). Through the above approaches, new generations of cellulases and xylanases with higher enzymatic activities will be produced which possess enhanced activity to bioconvert the cellulosic biomass efficiently and at reduced cost.

Contact Person: Dr Jong Bor Chyan (jongbc@nuclearmalaysia.gov.my )