Abstract
Crystallinity of oil palm fiber from empty fruit bunch (EFB) with and without tretaments was studied by analyzing the X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern. In this paper, we focused on the effect of acid hydrolysis onto EFB on the crystallinity of the extracted cellulose. The reaction was carried out by soaking EFB in 1% (v/v) aqueous sulfuric acid (H2SO4) at different temperatures of 120, 130 and 140°C for 1 h. The XRD patterns significantly showed changes in the 2θ peaks before and after the treatment. These changes were described in term of polymorphs type present, reflection and allomorphs of the samples. XRD peak high and XRD deconvolution methods were used to calculate and compare the percentage of crystallinity of untreated EFB (UT-EFB) and acid hydrolyzed samples (AH-EFB). Based on the calculation, increment of about 1.3 times and 1.5 times were achieved by using WAXS and XRD deconvolution methods respectively. This is due to the removal of amorphous part contributed by lignin, hemicellulose and cellulose. Fourier Transform infrared (FTIR) spectra showed the presence of similar peaks in AH-EFB and commercial microcrystalline cellulose (C-MCC) at 1427, 1315, 895 and 1022 cm-1. The micrographic features showed the acid hydrolysis had successfully took place and separated the EFB microfibrils bundles.
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