Characterization of cellulose extracted from oil palm empty fruit bunch

Recently, cellulose has been studied by many researchers due to its promising properties such as biodegradability, biocompatibility, hydrophilicity and robustness. Due to that it is applied in many fields such as paper, film, drug delivery, membranes, etc. Cellulose can be extracted from various plants while oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) is the one of its sources. In this study, cellulose was extracted by chemical treatments which involved the use of formic acid and hydrogen peroxide to remove hemicellulose and lignin components. Maximum yield was 43.22%. Based on the FT-IR spectra, the peak of wax (1735 cm−1), hemicellulose (1375 cm−1) and lignin (1248 cm−1 and 1037 cm−1) were not observed in extracted cellulose. TGA analysis showed that the extracted cellulose starts to thermally degrade at 340 °C. The SEM analysis suggested that the cellulose extracted from OPEFB was not much different from commercial cellulose.