Optimization of Pre-treatment Method in Shikimic Acid Extraction from Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME)

Abstract

The global pandemic spread of influenza like bird flu and swine flu are forcing abigger production of anti-influenza drug called Oseltamivir phosphate. The drug is made by synthesizing a compound named shikimic acid. Although the demand of the drug increases, the source of shikimic acid material is limited. Meanwhile, palm oil mill effluent (POME), a waste generated from palm oil industry is provenly rich in phytonutrients. This research aims to improve the shikimic extraction process from palm oil mill effluent by pre-treating the POME. Three pre-treatments were done on the POME which are solvent-extraction method, sedimentation method, and combination of solvent-extraction and sedimentation method. Sedimentation used the centrifugal principle and solvent-extraction used n-hexane as the solvent. Extraction of shikimic acid from pre-treated POME was done using ethyl acetate as the solvent. Detection of shikimic acid was done using TLC method and FT-IR instrument, while HPLC was used to measure the amount of shikimic acid extracted. Yield of shikimic acid obtained after solvent-extraction pre-treatment (0.0795%) was better than the sedimentation pre-treatment (0.015%). Also, the solvent-extraction pre-treatment was more efficient (87.51%) than sedimentation pre-treatment (68.15%) in removing oil and grease. However, the best result was produced from the combination of both pre-treatments.