Eng-Tong Phuah

1 INTRODUCTION Nanocellulose is a natural dietary fiber originating from plant biomass whose waste contains a high potential for reusing as high-value-added materials (Phanthong et al., 2018). Reusing plant waste enhances environmental sustainability. For instance, using dried long fibers (DLF) from the palm tree can minimize hazards caused by massive waste disposal as the highest-yielding edible oil crop in tropical countries (Lim et al., 2022).

Diacylglycerol (DAG) and monoacylglycerol (MAG) are two natural occurring minor components found in most edible fats and oils. These compounds have gained increasing market demand owing to their unique physicochemical properties. Enzymatic glycerolysis in solvent-free system might be a promising approach in producing DAG and MAG-enriched oil. Understanding on glycerolysis mechanism is therefore of great importance for process simulation and optimization.