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

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.