An-Najah Staff

Jeft is a side product of oil industry.It consists of wood components: cellulose, hemicelluloses, lignin, and extracts.We succeeded in extracting about 40-45% cellulose from Jeft.The extracted cellulose was subjected to analysis by IR, Sugar contents, Intrinsic Viscosity, and Scanning Electronic Microscope.Results of these analyses indicate that cellulose present in Jeft has a microcrystalline structure with low IV (Intrinsic Viscosity).This property makes it ideal for drug and food applications. In this study, Jeft and extracted cellulose were subjected to hydrolysis to sugar by acids such as HCl and H2SO4.The purpose of the hydrolysis was to convert produced sugar to ethanol which could be used as auto fuel.Highest yield of 64% sugar was obtained using acid alone (concentrated HCl).The yield of sugar was enhanced to about 49.89% using diluted HCl (10%) with Lewis acid ZnCl2(20%) . These results indicate that cellulose obtained from Jeft has a microcrystalline structure.These results are consistent with the results obtained fromIntrinsic Viscosity (IV), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and Infrared spectroscopy (IR) studies which all showed that cellulose has a microcrystalline structure.Medium rate of hydrolysis could be attributed to the high crystallinity of cellulose which reduces the accessibility of hydrolyzing agent to cellulose structure.