Application of CMC from Oil Palm Biomass as Anti-Redeposition Agent in Laundry Detergent

This research was focused on the utilizing one of palm oil biomass; the palm pressed fibre (PPF) for producing CMC through etherification of cellulose with monochloroacetic acid. The gained CMC fibre based was tested for its potential as anti-redeposition agent. The main objective was to synthesize cellulose and carboxymethyl cellulose value added product from oil palm biomass PPF using established standard method of ASTM (American Standard Test Method) and to run quality control studies for all sample such as viscosity of CMC, purity of CMC, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) and Thermal Gravimetric Analyzer (TGA) Analysis. The effect of the CMC as anti-redeposition agent in laundry detergent making was focused as the main potential. The produced CMC was excellent in quality and has imitated the standard CMC with degree of substitution of 0.7 rather than 0.9. By using the TGA analysis, the moisture, volatile, carbon and ash content of the CMC was valued as 14.79%, 40.29%, 8.32% and 17.93%, respectively. 1% CMC added into three (3) different types of detergents against number of wash cycle to avoid soil redeposited back to our laundry load with Yr/Yo represents the whiteness retention in fabric swatches. Five wash cycles with duration of 10 minutes for each cycle was chosen since there was possibility that within minimum cycle of 1-2 detergent performance is still at its best. Detergent A + 1% (w/v) CMC has proved to give significant brightness of 59% better than Detergent A without CMC. CMC produced and reported in this paper has been proved to own such a potential and is expected to achieve interesting quality with better research exposure or maybe through a great pilot plant scale of CMC-antiredeposition-detergent with real dirty clothing-real washing machine test. Keywords. Palm Pressed Fibre; CMC (Carboxymethyl Cellulose);anti-redeposition

Combustion characteristics of palm pressed fibres biochar and sub-bituminous Malaysian coal

In this research, the combustion properties of coal and biochar were investigated and compared to identify the potentiality of biochar for coal replacement application. Biochar is derived from the pyrolysis of palm pressed fibre (PPF) at 400 oC. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was used to study the combustion profiles of the materials. The biochar and coal were combusted via thermogravimetric analysis from ambient temperature to 800 oC at 10 oCmin-1 of heating rate. From the results, biochar showed the high calorific value of 27.30 MJkg-1compared to that of coal 26.21 MJkg-1. Furthermore, biochar comprised the greater content of carbon and fixed carbon. Although, during combustion, coal releases high heat of 0.052 W than biochar which gave 0.049 W. This reveals that the biochar produced from PPF can be a perfect competitor against coal for heat generation. This finding could assist in promoting the application of biomass as an alternative to fossil fuel.