Factors Affecting Water Absorption Of Hydrophilic Polymeric Membrane Based On Crosslinked Empty Fruit Bunch And Polyvinyl Alcohol

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Date
2018-03
Authors
Mohamad Jamil Khir, Mohammad Aliff Shakir
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Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
The hydrophilic polymeric membrane (HPM) was made up from treated empty fruit bunch (EFB) fibers impregnated with polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) solution which contains citric acid (CTR). The production of HPM involved 3 steps which was step 1 (EFB treatment process using prehydrolysis and alkali treatment), step 2 (formation of crosslinked PVOH film), and step 3 (impregnation of treated EFB fiber with PVOH solution contains CTR). In step 1, the EFB fibers were treated by pre-hydrolysis process with 20 min, 40 min, 60 min, and 80 min, then was continue with alkali treatment process at condition 17 % NaOH, 22 % NaOH, 27 % NaOH, and 32 % NaOH. Based on the results, treated EFB fibers with 60 min prehydrolysis and 27 % NaOH alkali treatment was found as the optimum conditioned for HPM production. In this conditioned, the chemical composition analysis of the treated EFB showed the percentage of hemicellulose and lignin content were 4.73 % and 4.66 % respectively. The time taken for water to absorb into the treated fibers was 2.47 min, the percentage of total water absorption was 494 % and moisture absorption was 12.97 %. The average fiber length for the treated EFB was 0.70 mm. Through X-ray Poweder Diffraction (XRD) analysis, it was found that the treated EFB fibers consist of 44 % amorphous region.Thus, the optimum conditioned which was 60 min and 27 % NaOH was chosen to be produce into HPM. In step 2, CTR was used as crosslink agent to produce PVOH film. The percentage of CTR studied were 10 %, 20 %, 30 %, and 40 % based on PVOH weight. The mixture was placed in the oven for crosslinking process at 150 oC for 30 minutes. From the result, the 10 % of CTR used, gave the highest water absorption which was 183.36 %. The FT-IR spectrum of crosslinked PVOH film showed that a peak between 1180 cm-1 to 1200 cm-1 was detected indicates that the crosslinking was occurred compared to uncrosslinked PVOH.
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Keywords
Water absorption of hydrophilic polymeric membrane , based on crosslinked empty fruit bunch
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