SINTESIS DAN KARAKTERISASI SELULOSA KRISTAL DARI BATANG TEMBAKAU

Abstract

Tobacco stalks are classified as waste that has the potential to be used as raw material for crystal cellulose due to its high cellulose content. Nanocellulose is a natural fiber extracted from cellulose, having a diameter < 100 nm. This study aims to characterize cellulose crystal from tobacco stalks and to determine the best conditions for the synthesis of cellulose crystal based on bleaching time and sulfuric acid concentration. The cellulose crystal synthesis process is carried out in 3 series of processes: delignification , bleaching, and acid hydrolysis processes. The delignification process was carried out with 12% NaOH solution followed by the bleaching process with 2% H 2 O 2 solution with time variations of 1 hour, 1.5 hours ; 2 hours ; 2.5 hours ; 3 hours. Analysis of cellulose using the chesson datta method showed that the best conditions occurred at 1.5 hours of bleaching with 63.1554% cellulose. The acid hydrolysis process uses H 2 SO 4 solution with various concentrations of 20% ; 30% ; 40% ; 50% ; 60%. Characterization is done by FTIR and SEM analysis. Research shows that cellulose crystal hasn’t yet reached the nano size. The best concentration of sulfuric acid in reducing the size of cellulose is 40%.