Biowaste valorization of palm tree Phoenix dactylifera L. for nanocellulose production

Abstract

Abstract The desire to reduce reliance on oil resources arises from the concerns about carbon footprint and nonrenewability. Conversely, the global presence of over 100 million palm trees poses a significant challenge due to the substantial amount of biowaste generated annually. Additionally, the use of nanocellulose as a cost-effective material is steadily gaining recognition for its growing adaptability over time. This research focused on the utilization of Iraqi date palm Phoenix dactylifera leaves waste, with low concentration acid-alkali treatment was used to produce nanocellulose. This part yields were 20 gm of nanocellulose from 100 gram of leaves before acid hydrolysis treatment, The chemical components of biosynthesized nanocellulose were 47.90 ,26.78 and 24.67 for α- cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin respectively. Extraction of nanocellulose from raw date palm leaves was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive x ray spectroscopy (EDX) and atomic force microscope (AFM). SEM results revealed rod like structured nanocellulose as well combined long-fine fibrous structures rather than compacted bundle with sizes ranging between 31 and 74 nm. With EDX, all spectra exhibit the peaks of carbon and oxygen as the main elements with 63.8% and 10.44% respectively in their compositions, which relate with the typical composition of cellulose. the 3D image of nanocellulose with a tapping mode highly uniform distribution of particles with many peaks. The statistical roughness analysis shows that the obtained roughness average is 7.20 nm with the root-mean-square (RMS) roughness value of 21.56 nm which corresponded relatively with the micrographs of SEM. The results of this study demonstrate the promise of using date palm waste as raw material to produce nanocellulose as green nanocomposite from biodegradable nanomaterial for water purification and sustained drug delivery for biomedical applications.