PLASTIC POLLUTION

Figure 1: Biochemical pathway of LA fermentation

MARKET DEMAND:

Figure 2: Projected market demand of PLA

 MALAYSIA IS NOT PRODUCING PLA
IN LARGE SCALE
• Malaysia is still dependent on commodity trade that is low value-added. In the case of
LA and polylactic acid (PLA), Malaysia export cassava starch to China and other big
companies at low price to produce LA and PLA. Malaysia is then import the LA and PLA
at very expensive price.

Top industry players:

Asia-Pacific Polylactic Acid (PLA) Market top players are BASF SE, Futerro, NatureWorks LLC,
TotalEnergies Corbion, Sulzer Ltd, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, TORAY INDUSTRIES, INC., Merck
KGaA, Musashino Chemical Laboratory, Ltd., Evonik Industries AG, Polyvel Inc.,
UNITIKA LTD., Jiangxi Academy of Sciences Biological New Materials Co., Ltd.,
Shanghai Tong-jie-liang Biomaterials Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Hisun Biomaterials Co., Ltd.,
and Radici Partecipazioni SpA.
 Table 1. Proximate composition of EFB, CPH, CP, CH, and BP.

Content

Substrates   Ref.

Protein (%) Hemi-cellulose (%) Cellulose (%) Lignin (%) Crude Fiber (%) Sugar (%)

EFB 4.87 36.60 28.30 35.00 67.00 6.00 (Mina Grace

Asoka, 2021)

(Palamae, 2016)

CPH 6.80 26.10 12.80 28.00 46.6 10.0 (Mashuni, 2020)

(Olugosi O. A.,

2019)

CP 3.00 29.81 5.04 4.81 15.8 7.5 (Onyelucheya

Okechukwu Elechi,
2016) (Natalie K.

Morgan, 2016)

CH 0.46 31.10 33.20 20.5 32.39 0.26 ( (Ali, 2010);

(Ewansiha, 2012),

(Widjaja, 2018)

BP 0.90 41.38 9.90 8.90 31.70 14.0 (Anhwange,

2009); (Kabenge,

2018)
 DNS Assay
2.00

Reducing Sugar Content (mg/ml)

1.80
1.60
1.40
1.20
1.00
0.80
0.60
0.40
0.20
-
0 1 2.25 5.5 7.75 10

CF BP CP CPH EFB

Figure 4: DNS assay result of all types of agrowaste used

Figure 3: HPLC diffractogram of untreated CH
glucose content
Magnitude of changes
0.6 BP has High sugar but
no fungi growth
Reducing Sugar Content (m g/m l)

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12

CF BP CP

Figure 6: Fungi in CH treated 5.5%

Figure 5: Magnitude of order sugar changes before and after EDA EDA at 60°C
 BEFORE AFTER
A B

Figure 7: SEM IMAGES. A] untreated coconut husk & B] preatreated coconut husk at
5.5%, EDA, respectively
Figure 8: X-ray diffraction profiles. a, untreated coconut husk, and b pre-treated coconut
husk with EDA.

Crystallinity of the pretreated CH increased due to the

removal of amorphous lignin and residues.
Figure 9: FTIR peaks of CH before and after EDA treatment.
Figure 10: Approximate schematic for lignocellulosic biomass pretreated by
EDA
LITERATURE REVIEWTable 2: List of recent similar studies
Morphology LA
Fungi species Carbon source Ref.
analysis production
Rhizopus oryzae glucose, xylose, ribose, Yam Filamentous vs. kinetic 80 & 100.5 g L−1 (Ajala, 2021)
peel hydrolysate growth
Rhizopus oryzae Glucose Pellet > Filamentous Pellet = 63.5 g L−1, (Yin, 2020)
form
LA-UN-1 Filamentous = 41.5 g
L−1
Rhizopus oryzae Cassava pulp hydrolysate Immobilized fungal 75.28 g L−1 (Pimtong, 2017)
cells increase LA
NRRL395
yield
Rhizopus oryzae Paper sludge, None 80 g L−1 (Takano, 2016)
     
NBRC 5384 hexoses, pentoses,
  sugar
alcohol, disaccharides, and
polysaccharides
Rhizopus oryzae Rotten avocado and guava + None 8.495 g L−1 (Titik Kurniawati,
CaCO3 2014)
AT3

Rhizopus sp. Cassava starch and leaves None 0.95 g/g (Azmi, 2016)
Rhizopus oryzae NRRL EFB Pellet > Clump form 0.12 g L-1 (F. Hamzah, 2009)
395
SIMILAR STUDY - NONE
1. Manuscript draft: ‘Novel Transformation of Cellulose
Allomorph of 5 Different Species of Pretreated
Substrates’

Target Journal: Cellulose, Springer Q1

2. Submitted Book Chapter: ‘Agrowaste Lignocellulose

Valorization for Sustainable Circular Bioeconomy’
To KOE Journal IIUM

3. In Draft: Phylogenetic Analysis of Rhizopus sp isolated

from agro-waste in Malaysia