A study of the porosity of coconut dregs cells based on variations in substrate size and pulsed electric field pre-treatment

This study aims to analyze the porosity of coconut dregs cells based on observations using FE-SEM, resulting from variations in substrate size and the duration of pulsed electric field (PEF) exposure, as well as delignification by Agrobacterium sp. The study was conducted using an exploratory approach, and the data were analyzed using Origin Lab. software. PEF is a non-thermal physical treatment with relatively low energy and short duration. The treatments in this study involved variations in coconut dregs particle size (20, 40, and 60 mesh) and variations in the contact time between the coconut dregs and PEF (30, 60, and 90 seconds). PEF was applied at 7900 V/cm, a frequency of 9 kHz, and a distance of 10 cm between the anode and cathode. Cell porosity was observed to determine the effects of the initial PEF treatment and degradation by Agrobacterium sp. Findings tested at a significance level of 0.001 indicated that the duration of PEF contact significantly influenced cell porosity as observed by FE-SEM. Longer PEF contact resulted in deeper pores, which correlated with the size of the coconut dregs particles.