scholarly journals Potential of Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch Resources in Nanocellulose Hydrogel Production for Versatile Applications: A Review

Materials ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 1245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farah Nadia Mohammad Padzil ◽  
Seng Hua Lee ◽  
Zuriyati Mohamed Asa’ari Ainun ◽  
Ching Hao Lee ◽  
Luqman Chuah Abdullah

Oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) is considered the cheapest natural fiber with good properties and exists abundantly in Malaysia. It has great potential as an alternative main raw material to substitute woody plants. On the other hand, the well-known polymeric hydrogel has gathered a lot of interest due to its three-dimensional (3D) cross-linked network with high porosity. However, some issues regarding its performance like poor interfacial connectivity and mechanical strength have been raised, hence nanocellulose has been introduced. In this review, the plantation of oil palm in Malaysia is discussed to show the potential of OPEFB as a nanocellulose material in hydrogel production. Nanocellulose can be categorized into three nano-structured celluloses, which differ in the processing method. The most popular nanocellulose hydrogel processing methods are included in this review. The 3D printing method is taking the lead in current hydrogel production due to its high complexity and the need for hygiene products. Some of the latest advanced applications are discussed to show the high commercialization potential of nanocellulose hydrogel products. The authors also considered the challenges and future direction of nanocellulose hydrogel. OPEFB has met the requirements of the marketplace and product value chains as nanocellulose raw materials in hydrogel applications.

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-9

The pulp and paper industry is advanced rapidly since there are many types of raw materials containing cellulose fibres that could be used to produce different kinds of paper by different methods in the mills. In Malaysia, one of the abundant non-wood materials for pulp and paper production is empty fruit bunch (EFB) from the oil palm. The EFB is the main fibrous residue and natural fibre which has promising potential as an alternative to replace woody materials. This study provides insight into the use of EFB as an alternative non-wood fibre resource in pulp and paper making. The potential of oil palm EFB transformed into valuable fibre material was elaborated. In this review, detailed information on the properties of EFB for pulp and paper making process to identify the chemical composition and fibre morphology were discussed. Recent advanced applications including nanocellulose from EFB, polymeric hydrogel, and antimicrobial papers were discussed to demonstrate high commercialization for pulp and paper technology. The three-dimensional (3D) printing technique has been employed due to the high complexity of paper products. The future trends and challenges regarding the use of EFB in pulp and paper making were also reviewed. This study demonstrated that the EFB has met the demand of the market chains as a potential raw material in paper making and manufacturing.


Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 1085
Author(s):  
Xing Wan ◽  
Yang Ping ◽  
Jun Li

Oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) as an abundant waste material can be utilized for pulp production to alleviate the shortage of raw materials in the paper industry. Sulfonated chemi-mechanical pulp (SCMP) has great potential in paper making industry. However, its poor performance due to the high surface lignin content limits its application. In this study, we used EFB as raw material to produce SCMP and systematically studied the effect of ozone treatment on pulp properties. Results show that the surface structure and morphology of fibers exhibited distinct differences under different ozone dosage treatments. Compared to the control, the content of surface lignin of pulps was reduced by 2.56%, 4.64%, 13.24% and 25.24% when ozone consumption was 1, 3, 5 and 7 wt%, respectively. Meanwhile, the treated pulp had a lower drainability at the same refining energy level. Moreover, the physical and optical properties of handsheets were improved significantly after ozone treatment. Ozone treatment is a very efficient way to improve the performance of SCMP. Additionally, this method avoids complicated processes and chemical consumption. Therefore, as an effective, environmentally friendly and low-cost treatment method, ozone treatment can improve the performance of EFB SCMP and thus provide a high-quality pulp resource.


2012 ◽  
Vol 567 ◽  
pp. 263-266
Author(s):  
Nor Aini Ahmad Zawawi ◽  
Alyani Ismail ◽  
Khalina Abdan ◽  
Mohd Adzir Mahdi

Printed circuit boards (PCB) are widely used in electronic devices, at low and high frequency applications. Unfortunately, conventional PCBs are basically made from toxic petroleum products. Once they are unusable, they are bound to be thrown away since they are not recyclable or easily decomposed. In solving this problem, a new PCB substrate, which is based on reinforcing natural fiber with thermoplastics, is proposed. Oil palm empty fruit bunch has been chosen as raw material while polypropylene (PP) was added as filler. In modeling the prototype, five different loadings of natural fiber reinforced with different percentages of weight of PP were studied. The reflection method (one-port reflection coefficient method) is employed in measuring the permittivity. The measurement covers permittivity and dielectric loss.


2020 ◽  
Vol 305 ◽  
pp. 28-35
Author(s):  
Anslem Wong Tsu An ◽  
Sujan Debnath ◽  
Vincent Lee Chieng Chen ◽  
Moola Mohan Reddy ◽  
Alokesh Pramanik

In recent years, studies regarding natural fiber reinforced composites have been increased as they are biodegradable with good mechanical performance therefore can help to overcome the environmental issue. As the natural fibers are easy to obtain, many industries have started to make use of natural fiber composites which are light in weight and possess good mechanical properties. However, the natural fiber composites also possess certain limitations most importantly their high moisture absorption ability which makes them incompatible at degradable environment. The fiber constituents of natural fiber composite may have different type of interactions at different environmental conditions. In addition, the involvement of nanoparticles in the composite may be the solution to overcome the deficiencies. In this research, the degradation behaviour of Oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) fibers reinforced epoxy composites upon exposure to degradable environmental conditions and the effect of adding nanoparticles have been studied. The tensile tests were conducted before and after the exposure to different environmental conditions including plain water, moist soil, brine solution, and cooking oil. Results shows that the addition of 10wt% of OPEFB fiber to the epoxy composites had improved the mechanical tensile strength up to 15.97% and composites exposed to brine solution have the most prominent sign of degradation in mechanical properties in both composites with and without nanosilica. Nevertheless, the composites with nanosilica have shown up to 24.28% improvement in tensile strength after exposure to different environmental conditions. The improvement were attributed due to filling the voids of the composites with nanosilica and good interfacial adhesion between the nanofiller, fiber, and matrix.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Satriani Aga Pasma ◽  
Rusli Daik ◽  
Mohamad Yusof Maskat ◽  
Osman Hassan

Oil palm empty fruit bunch fiber (OPEFB) is a lignocellulosic waste from palm oil mills. It contains mainly cellulose from which glucose can be derived to serve as raw materials for valuable chemicals such as succinic acid. A three-level Box-Behnken design combined with the canonical and ridge analysis was employed to optimize the process parameters for glucose production from OPEFB cellulose using enzymatic hydrolysis. Organosolv pretreatment was used to extract cellulose from OPEFB using ethanol and water as the solvents. The extracted cellulose was characterized by thermogravimetric analysis, FTIR spectroscopy, and field emission scanning electron microscopy. Hydrolysis parameters including amount of enzyme, amount of cellulose, and reaction time were investigated. The experimental results were fitted with a second-order polynomial equation by a multiple regression analysis and found that more than 97% of the variations could be predicted by the models. Using the ridge analysis, the optimal conditions reaction time found for the production of glucose was 76 hours and 30 min, whereas the optimum amount of enzyme and cellulose was 0.5 mL and 0.9 g, respectively. Under these optimal conditions, the corresponding response value predicted for glucose concentration was 169.34 g/L, which was confirmed by validation experiments.


Author(s):  
Edgars Kirilovs ◽  
Silvija Kukle ◽  
Dana Beļakova ◽  
Anatolijs Borodiņecs ◽  
Ādolfs Ruciņš ◽  
...  

<p class="R-AbstractKeywords"><span lang="EN-US">Energy and raw material costs, an increase in environmental pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, global warming, depletion of fossil raw materials stimulate to seek and study alternatives to the synthetic fibers and products made of them for full or partial replacement. Renewable raw materials, including natural fiber sources, are the future of storage resources with a variety of positive effects on both the planet ecosystem and the living and working environment, and the energy consumption of delivering the required functionality. One of the most important energy-saving types is to reduce energy consumption in buildings by insulating them.</span></p><p class="R-AbstractKeywords"><span lang="EN-US">For Latvian conditions suitable crops are historically grown flax and hemp. Within the framework of the studies, hemp stems are being used. Hemp compared with flax, are less suffering from diseases and less damaged by pests, so hemp cultivation is practically free from use of chemical pesticides and herbicides reducing the risk to the ecosystem.</span></p><p class="R-AbstractKeywords"><span lang="EN-US">One of the most frequently mentioned industrial hemp raw materials positive qualities are their very wide use, practically all plant parts can be used in production of different products. This work explores the possibilities and technologies within the Latvian grown hemp stems to work into board materials with insulation capability.</span></p><p class="R-AbstractKeywords"><span lang="EN-US">Hemp fibers/shives mix boards can fulfill the main function of insulation materials, i.e., to reduce the transmission of heat, because they have a porous structure and low density. Material thermal insulation properties affect physical and structural properties of compounds. Cost effective particles board samples from chopped hemp stems with three types of adhesives and different thicknesses were produced and their thermal conductivity evaluated. The technologies applied and test results will be discussed in the paper. </span></p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-42
Author(s):  
Irwan Suriaman ◽  
Mardiyati ◽  
Jooned Hendrarsakti ◽  
Ari Darmawan Pasek

Industry 4.0 era materials used by entrepreneurs should be recycled, environmentally friendly, renewable with less chemical content. Indonesia as a tropical country has a large land area with the potential to produce the largest natural fiber in the world. One opportunity that can be applied to the utilization of natural fibers in air filters that currently use dominant materials is synthetic fibers. natural fiber has the advantage because it does not contain toxic chemicals, local raw materials, and is easily produced. This research will analyze the mechanical and morphological characteristics of biological fibers that have great potential as pre-filter raw material. Analysis of mechanical properties through tensile strength testing for single fibers and morphological analysis through scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Tensile testing was the results are; palm oil has a tensile strength of 620 MPa; 998 MPa and 213 MPa flax coconut fiber. For the morphological test results from SEM analysis for ramie fiber, it looks solid without fiber holes; The fibers appear to be many small fibers bound to one another while coir fibers have many pore holes in one observed fiber.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-68
Author(s):  
Rahman Farhan Aditya

Oil Palm growths in Indonesia are getting higher every year. Oil palm plantationproduced various waste, including oil palm empty fruit bunches (OP-EFB). 95 % Indonesia energy demand still provided by the fossil fuel and only 5 % provided by renewable energy, which provide opportunity of OP-EFB biomass pellets to be utilized as alternative resource. The research of biomass still low, especially research of OP-EFB biomass pellets. Therefore, the research objectives were to determine the production process of OP-EFB and to define the most effective binder and binder ratio for the biomass pellets. This research experiments  consist of shredding, chopping, drying, grinding, and sieving as raw material pretreatment. Also, varying the binder and binder concentration of the mixture between raw materials was the part of this thesis research. The binders used in this thesis research are PVAC paste and tapioca based paste with 4 variations of concentration. The analyses of the biomass pellets characteristic are density,compressive strength, proximate analysis (moisture, ash, volatile matter, and fixed carbon), calorific value, combustion rate, and gas chromatographic & mass spectroscopy (GCMS). The result shows that OP-EFB biomass pellets are qualified to be considered as biomass pellets. The most effective OP-EFB biomass pellets is biomass pellets with 10% tapioca binder concentration.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reza Mahjoub ◽  
Jamaludin Bin Mohamad Yatim ◽  
Abdul Rahman Mohd Sam

According to environmental concerns and financial problems, natural fibers have become interesting and fascinating nowadays to be used as an industrial material and structural material for rehabilitating of structures. Oil palm empty fruit bunch fiber (OPF) is a natural fiber which is found a lot in tropical areas. Scientists have used OPF fiber with many types of resins such as epoxy, polypropylene, polyester, and phenol formaldehyde. Therefore, this paper focused on the properties of OPF fiber and gathered mechanical properties of OPF composites (OPF as reinforcement of polymer) reported by other researchers in terms of tensile and flexural properties. Furthermore, the chemical surface modification methods to solve the interfacial bonding of fiber and polymer were mentioned. In addition, the results of hybrid composites of OPF were also discussed in this paper. Meanwhile, the results of composites were compared to pure resin properties and also the stress-strain diagram and internal strain energy of composites were considered. Besides, the effects of adding OPF to other composites to make a new hybrid composite were indicated. Finally, it is clear that the use of oil palm fiber composites for structural elements for bearing loads is not recommended but the usage of OPF composites for secondary structural elements may be recommended due to future researches.


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