Comparison Study of Various Cellulose Acetylation Methods from its IR Spectra and Morphological Pattern of Cellulose Acetate as a Biomass Valorisation

• Main Author: Roni Maryana, Muslih Anwar, Andri Suwanto, Siti Uswatun Hasanah , Eka Fitriana
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Technoscience Publications 2020-06-01
• Series: Nature Environment and Pollution Technology
• Online Access: http://neptjournal.com/upload-images/(21)D-998-Final.pdf

Recently substitution of fossil fuel-based polymer by natural polymer sources has been studied. Cellulose acetate that can be produced from the cellulose of biomass waste is an environmentally friendly and important polymer with many applications. This study was undertaken to determine the most suitable and effective method in the cellulose acetate (CA) production. Moreover, the role of catalyst and usefulness of trichloroacetate and I2 catalyst has been studied. As many as 12 methods of acetylation for CA synthesis has been carried out, and the results have been compared. The peak height ratio of infrared (IR) spectra of acetyl groups was studied to determine the formation of CA. The result showed that the activation step resulted in higher IR spectra peak than the direct synthesis method. An important result of this study was shown when trichloroacetate catalyst combined with H2SO4 resulted in significantly higher IR spectra than the conventional method. Interestingly, I2 catalyst resulted in better IR spectra peak than H2SO4 did, even the activation step was not performed. It showed that the addition of trichloroacetate and I2 in the CA synthesis with acetic anhydride as an acetylating agent was better than conventional CA acetylation method. Furthermore, I2 catalyst showed the best result among other methods and will be the promising pathway to produce CA. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis showed that the diameter of cellulose fibre was decreased and fracture surface occurred after the synthesis reaction.