Abstract—Oil palm fronds is an agricultural waste derives from the harvesting of oil palm fruit bunches, rich in fiber and cellulosic compound. This work reported the utilization of oil palm fronds for synthesis carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC). The optimization of reaction conditions was studied by using response surface methodology (RSM). The design experiment is central composite design consists of 2 factors (% NaOH in mercerization process and weight of monochloroacetic acid in etherification process) with 5 levels. It was found that at optimum condition: 52 % NaOH and 10.7 g of MCA, at reaction temperature of 50 ℃ with 3 h of reaction time, given the highest yield of 170.1 % CMC. Synthesized oil palm fronds CMC obtained at this condition was characterized, which has DS of 1.1, purity 97.3 %, viscosity of 1% w/v CMC solution was 685 cP. This synthesized oil palm fronds CMC could be categorized as technical grade CMC.
Index Terms—Carboxymethyl cellulose, Oil palm fronds, optimization, response surface methodology.
Penpun Tasaso is with the Department of Chemical Engineering, Mahidol University Nakornpathom 73170 Thailand (e-mail: penpun.tas@ mahidol.ac.th).
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Cite: Penpun Tasaso, "Optimization of Reaction Conditions for Synthesis of Carboxymethyl Cellulose from Oil Palm Fronds," International Journal of Chemical Engineering and Applications vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 101-104, 2015.
