Acetylation of Bacterial Cellulose from a Mixture of Palm Flour Liquid Waste and Coconut Water: The Effect of Acetylation Time on Yield and Identification of Cellulose Acetate

Abstract

Cellulose acetate is a promising thermoplastic polymer to be developed since it has some characteristics, among others are easy to be formed, non-toxic, high stability, and its raw materials are renewable. The most used source of cellulose acetate raw material is bacterial cellulose because bacterial cellulose has the higher purity and the process cost is lower rather than plant cellulose. Nowadays, the production of bacterial cellulose is highly developed using coconut water media. Nevertheless, coconut water costs expensive and the supply is rare. Materials that are being potential to be developed as raw materials of bacterial cellulose through fermentation process is palm flour liquid wasted since it contains high amounts of carbon and nitrogen. This study began with the synthesis of bacterial cellulose from palm flour oil liquid waste and coconut water using Acetobacter xylinum bacteria and then cellulose acetate is synthesized through an acetylation reaction. This study aims to determine the optimum acetylation time on its performance as a reinforcement filler to be applied as a packaging material. Based on the results of Scanning Electron Microscopy and Fourier Transform Infra-Red analysis on predetermined variables, it resulted particles in the form of bacterial cellulose and cellulose acetate with the highest yield of cellulose acetate at 3 hours of acetylation was 94.74%.