Environmental issue creates awareness to replace current precursor from fossil fuel for carbon fibre production that fosters the research to find sustainable precursor. The global production is dependent on polyacrylonitrile, PAN-based carbon fibre and th

  • Vijayaletchumy KARUNAKARAN, Tau-Len Kelly YONG

Abstract

Environmental issue creates awareness to replace current precursor from fossil fuel for carbon fibre production that fosters the research to find sustainable precursor. The global production is dependent on polyacrylonitrile, PAN-based carbon fibre and the applications are very limited due to the high cost of precursor. Malaysia is the second largest manufacturer of palm oil after Indonesia. There is abundance of wastes generated from its oil palm plantation, mainly empty fruit bunch (EFB). The oil palm biomass consists of cellulose and lignin, which binds to hemicellulose in the cell wall providing the structural rigidity to the plant. Hence, the recovery of lignin from biomass value-added product is a challenging task. Phenol under subcritical conditions can produce highly purified lignin from biomass with a minimum amount of alteration to its structures in the absence of catalyst. Therefore, this study highlighted lignin recovery from empty fruit bunch (EFB) in subcritical phenol in a batch system. The investigation was carried out on the effect of reaction time (1–10 min), temperature (260–300 °C), and solid loading (6 and 10 g) towards its fundamental properties (lignin purity and particulate matter content). The lignin purity achieved in this study is in the range of 17.3–59.8% meanwhile the particulate matter content in the range of 18.3-67.2%. Lignin purity and particulate matter of the recovered lignin increased with reaction time, temperature and solid loading. High particulate matter caused lower purity of the lignin. Subcritical fluid break the linkages in the lignocellulosic compounds and dissolved cellulose and hemicellulose, resulting in higher lignin purity. The fundamental study on the properties of recovered lignin helps to study its feasibility as a substitute of current carbon fibre precursor which can be produced in a low cost and meet the world demand.

Published
2020-06-01
How to Cite
Vijayaletchumy KARUNAKARAN, Tau-Len Kelly YONG. (2020). Environmental issue creates awareness to replace current precursor from fossil fuel for carbon fibre production that fosters the research to find sustainable precursor. The global production is dependent on polyacrylonitrile, PAN-based carbon fibre and th. International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 29(8s), 4365-4373. Retrieved from http://sersc.org/journals/index.php/IJAST/article/view/25472