Production ot Acetyl Cellulose from Agricultural Waste of Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunches

摘要

In Indonesia especially in Lampung Province, there are a lot of oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) as an organic material waste. OPEFB is relatively inexpensive lignocellulose material as raw material of cellulose acetate or acetyl cellulose. In a business to bigger added value out of these natural renewable materials, the production of the acetyl cellulose was performed well by the acetylation of cellulose from OPEFB using different methods. These were extensively characterized using thermogravimetric analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. The results indicated that the acetyl cellulose resulted showed similar properties to cotton acetyl cellulose. Degree of substitution of the resultant acetyl cellulose from different methods was improved from 1.86 to 2.60.