Depolymerization of Cellulose Components from Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunches in Bleaching and Delignification Process

Oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) are oil palm industry waste which is indeed abundant. OPEFB waste has been explorated to make fiber, cellulose, and its derivatives. In the process of extracting cellulose, there is depolymerization of several components, both hemicellulose, lignin, color, and structural elements. The combination of bleaching under acidic conditions and alkaline delignification gave different changes, one of which depends on the type of bleacher, concentration, reaction time, and the number of stages carried out. This study aimed to examine the effect of NaClO2 concentration and bleaching time on the physical and chemical characteristics that indicate the depolymerization process of OPEFB fiber. Depolymerization can be indicated by changes in the cellulose color, the content of cellulose, and the changes in cellulose crystallinity. The change of cellulose mass was affected by the bleacher concentration and the bleaching time. High concentrations of bleacher will reduce the cellulose mass significantly. Similarly, the depolymerization of the chromophore elements in OPEFB fiber will show a change in color from brown to gray-white with different brightness intensities. The XRD test indicated that there was a correlation between low crystallinity with the use of high bleacher concentrations.