Determination of Antioxidants in Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunches

Abstract

The oil palm Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFB) undergoes sterilization before being threshed to separate the fruits from the bunch. Upon threshing, the fruits were pressed for its oil while the now Empty Fruit Bunch (EFB) will be discarded or used as biomass. It is believed that the EFB contains small amount of oil as well as phytonutrients which contain antioxidative property. This study reports on the extraction and analyses of various types of phenolic compounds, which have been known to exhibit antioxidant property, from the EFB. Different methods were employed in order to extract the Soluble Free (SF), Insoluble Bound (ISB) and Esterified Free (EF) phenolics in the EFB. Analyses of these phenolics were carried out spectrophotometricaly. The concentrations of the SF, ISB and EF phenolics varies among the wet and dried EFB extracts. All the extracts from both wet and dried EFB exhibit radical scavenging activities.