Application of cellulose of Boehmeria nivea as natural flocculants in direct flocculation

Abstract

The use of cellulose which is a natural polymer as a flocculant has been widely used, however, the extraction of cellulose from plants has not been widely studied, particularly extracted from Boehmeria nivea (ramie). In this research, the stem of ramie came from the waste of textile raw material. The isolation of α-cellulose is done through pre-hydrolysis, delignification, and bleaching processes. In this research, there are 6 types of α-cellulose that are isolated from the stem of ramie, depending on the sodium hydroxide concentration in the delignification process. The isolated α-cellulose is characterized using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and tested its flocculation ability through jar-test apparatus with 5 gr/L kaolin suspension as synthetic water samples and turbidity as the test parameter. The coagulation-flocculation experiments were carried out without the addition of a coagulant, which is called the direct flocculation method. Data analysis was performed by One-Way ANOVA statistical analysis, with Duncan’s multiple range test as the post-hoc analysis. It is concluded that cellulose is a good candidate biomaterial for natural flocculants in removing turbidity and further modification of α-cellulose with cationic grafts will be carried out for the next stage of research.