Physicochemical of microcrystalline cellulose from oil palm fronds as potential methylene blue adsorbents

Abstract

The present study sheds light on the physical and chemical characteristics of microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) isolated from oil palm fronds (OPF) pulps. It was found that the OPF MCC was identified as cellulose II polymorph, with higher crystallinity index than OPF α-cellulose (CrI_OPFMCC: 71%>CrI_{OPFα-cellulose}: 47%). This indicates that the acid hydrolysis allows the production of cellulose that is highly crystalline. BET surface area of OPF MCC was found to be higher than OPF α-cellulose (S_BETOPFMCC: 5.64m²g^-1>S_{BETOPFα-cellulose}:Q_a⁰ 2.04m²g^-1), which corroborates their potential as an adsorbent. In batch adsorption studies, it was observed that the experimental data fit well with Langmuir adsorption isotherm in comparison to Freundlich isotherm. The monolayer adsorption capacity (Q_a⁰) of OPF MCC was found to be around 51.811mgg^-1 and the experimental data fitted well to pseudo-second-order kinetic model.

Keywords: Adsorbent; Microcrystalline cellulose; Oil palm fronds.