Synthesis and Optimization Study of Microcrystalline Cellulose (MCC) through Acid Hydrolysis from Confiscated Cigarette

Abstract

Tobacco is a type of plant which is used to make some products such as cigarettes and cigarettes are known to have a lot of harmful effects. There are few factors which causes the Royal Malaysian Custom Department to confiscate cigarettes which are white smuggled cigarette, contraband and false while storing the confiscated cigarettes for long time does not give any benefits. Therefore, cigarette butts which are chosen for this research study come from these confiscated cigarettes to utilize the waste. The tobacco was first undergoing alkaline pretreatment followed by bleaching process. Finally, hydrolysis process was done to synthesize microcrystalline cellulose (MCC). In this research, various acids (hydrochloric acid, sulphuric acid, and nitric acid) were used for the hydrolysis process. It was found that the best acid to synthesize MCC was nitric acid where the highest percentage of MCC yield was 76.83%. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) shows the surface morphology of MCC which is observed to be like rod-like structure, while X-ray diffraction (XRD) results indicate that the crystalline and crystalline size of MCC was 74.28% and 4.61nm, respectively. FTIR spectra shows a successful removal of lignin structure from raw cigarette butts after hydrolysis process. Besides that, optimization of acid hydrolysis using Design of Expert software (DOE) were conducted where three independent variables were chosen which are hydrolysis time, hydrolysis temperature and acid concentration (nitric acid). Through this study, the highest yield of MCC obtained was 78% and the optimum conditions of parameters are 60 minutes, 60°C and 1.25M of nitric acid. The results of this study can be used to eliminate the hazards of the cigarette butts scattered in the environment and create the added value for the overall process.