SUMMARY
Several methods such as autohydrolysis, microwave-assisted hydrolysis, chemical-enzymatic hydrolysis, chemical hydrolysis process, and enzymatic hydrolysis process have been used for xylooligosaccharides production. Among these methods, chemical with enzymatic hydrolysis is the frequently studied these days in converting lignocellulosic biomass to its xylose monomer for xylooligosaccharides production. The present work involves an investigation on the five parameters namely enzyme loading, agitation speed, substrate loading, temperature and hydrolysis time on enzymatic hydrolysis for xylooligosaccharides production. Pretreated oil palm frond bagasse by dilute nitric acid was used for enzymatic hydrolysis using Cellic HTec2. The effects of factors were analyzed by half fractional factorial design 25-1 using Design Expert with Response Surface Methodology to achieve maximum xylooligosaccharides production. The results of this study indicate that the best enzymatic hydrolysis condition yielded 4.13 mg/L of xylooligosaccharides when performed at 5% (w/v) of substrate loading, 50 U/mL enzyme loading with 200 rpm agitation speed and 55°C for 4 hours of hydrolysis time. Two factors that contributed to the highest production of xylooligosaccharides were substrate loading and enzyme loading. The model obtained in this present research is significant with p-value < 0.0001 and R-squared of 0.9545. It is recommended that model had a maximum point which is possible for the optimization process later. Overall, the finding of this study suggests that Cellic HTec2 is one of the suitable candidate for enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreated oil palm frond bagasse for higher xylooligosaccharides production.