Affiliations 

  • 1 Materials Technology Research Group (MaTReC), School of Chemical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Minden, Penang, Malaysia
  • 2 School of Industrial Technology, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Minden, Penang, Malaysia
  • 3 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 4 Faculté des Sciences et Technologies, Université de Lorraine, Boulevard des Aiguillettes, BP 70239, 54506 Vandoeuvre les Nancy, France
  • 5 Materials Technology Research Group (MaTReC), School of Chemical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Minden, Penang, Malaysia. Electronic address: mhh@usm.my
Int J Biol Macromol, 2020 Jun 15;153:385-398.
PMID: 32145234 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2020.03.020

Abstract

Oil palm frond (OPF) is one of largest contributions to the biomass waste from oil palm plantation. In this work, OPF has been successfully utilized to prepare cellulose nanocrystal (OPF-CNC) by acid hydrolysis. OPF was initially treated with autohydrolysis treatment. The obtained OPF-CNC was characterized via complementary analyses. The produced OPF-CNC showed a high crystallinity index value (60%) and high BET surface area (26.10 m2 g-1) as compared to α-cellulose (crystallinity index: 54% and BET surface area:7.14 m2g-1). The surface analyses via scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) demonstrated that the OPF-CNC has a smooth surface with a needle-like shape, where the average length and diameter are 95.09 nm and 6.81 nm, respectively. The corrosion analyses via electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and potentiodynamic polarization (PD) illustrate that the coated mild steel with the inclusion of 0.5 wt% OPF-CNC has managed to sharply reduce the corrosion (99%). The coated mild steel with the inclusion of 0.5 wt% OPF-CNC showed the highest hydrophobicity (100.5 ± 0.7°) and has lowest amount of O via water contact angle and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) analyses respectively, indicating lowest corrosion rate.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.