Isolation, Characterisation and Application of Nanocellulose from Natural Fibre

Ooi, Shu Teng (2022) Isolation, Characterisation and Application of Nanocellulose from Natural Fibre. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

Oil palm fibre (OPF) is one of the most abundant agricultural waste found in Malaysia. Nanocellulose isolated from oil palm fibres (OPF) is one of the eye-catchers of the current research industry owing to previous research showing the great potential of nanocellulose as a reinforcing agent for various polymer nanocomposites. This project had focussed on the isolation, characterisation and application of nanocellulose from natural fibre as reinforcement in chitosan (CH) composites. The acid hydrolysis (AH) and deep eutectic solvent (DES) were carried out to isolate the nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) from oil palm fibre. The DES method utilised choline chloride and oxalic acid at a ratio of 1:1 to extract NCC. After that, the NCC/CH composites were prepared by solvent casting method at different NCC contents (1 wt%, 3 wt%, 5 wt%, 7 wt% and 9 wt% NCC). The NCC were characterised by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and particle size measurement while the reinforcing effect of NCC/CH composites were determined by tensile test. FTIR results revealed that DES-NCC exhibited similar spectra with the commercial-grade NCC. Moreover, DES-NCC had a higher thermal stability as compared to AH-NCC. Particle size distribution also showed that commercial-grade NCC, AH-NCC and DES-NCC were fall in nanosize. The ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and elastic modulus of NCC/CH composites were improved significantly whilst the elongation at break decreased gradually by the addition of NCC into the CH matrix. The 5 wt% NCC incorporated into the CH matrix had the highest UTS value with the improvement of 59.26 %. Therefore, NCC was found to be a promising reinforcing agent in chitosan composite for food packaging application.