Oil palm empty fruit bunch cellulose fillers as alternative fillers for carboxylated nitrile butadiene rubber latex films

Abstract

Malaysia is one of the largest contributors to oil palm plantations and industries, resulting in the generation of a lot of oil palm waste such as oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB). The main goal of this research is to investigate the effect of the OPEFB cellulose as one of the alternative fillers in the carboxylated nitrile butadiene rubber (XNBR) latex films. The OPEFB waste was subjected to ultrasonic with alkali and bleaching treatment prior to addition in XNBR latex compounds. The ultrasonic treatment shows better removal of wax, hemicellulose and lignin but leads to breaking down the crystalline structure of the cellulose particles resulted in reduction of the mechanical properties of the OPEFB cellulose filled XNBR latex films. The OPEFB cellulose filled XNBR latex compound is then subjected to different zinc oxide (ZnO) loading. It found that the increase in zinc oxide loading enhanced the ionic crosslink formation but disrupt the covalent crosslink formation since most of the metal cations Zn2+ tend to form ionic clusters for the ionic crosslinks and Zn-cellulose complex. Overall, the OPEFB cellulose fillers shows positive impact as alternative fillers in XNBR latex films.