| Summary: | Oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) is the largest biomass waste from the palm oil industry. The OPEFB has a lignocellulose content of 34.77% cellulose, 22.55% hemicellulose, and 10.58% lignin. Therefore, this material’s hemicellulose and cellulose content have a high potential for xylitol and ethanol production, respectively. This study investigated the integrated microaerobic xylitol production by <i>Debaryomyces hansenii</i> and anaerobic ethanol semi simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (semi-SSF) by <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i> using the same OPEFB material. A maximum xylitol concentration of 2.86 g/L was obtained with a yield of 0.297 g/g<sub>xylose</sub>. After 96 h of anaerobic fermentation, the maximum ethanol concentration was 6.48 g/L, corresponding to 71.38% of the theoretical ethanol yield. Significant morphological changes occurred in the OPEFB after hydrolysis and xylitol and ethanol fermentation were shown from SEM analysis.
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