Lignin Production from Oil Palm Biomass

Malaysia is currently one of the world‟s top producers of oil palm products. The palm oil milling sector in Malaysia generates millions of metric tonne of oil palm waste annually. These include the empty fruit bunches (EFB) generated at the oil mill, the oil palm fronds (OPF) available throughout the year and the oil palm trunks (OPT) which are generated at felling. Depending on the type of residue, it is mulched, burned as fuel or burned in the fields. It makes the good reasons to fully exploit the potential use of this waste. The lignin can be used as high value-added product. This research is to extract lignin from oil palm biomass. Lignin is the most difficult component of biomass to be degraded due to its complex structure, high molecular and high insolubility. The solvent extraction method is used in this research. Various differences of the sodium hydroxide concentration are used as main parameter in this research. As the results, the different amount of lignin produced from oil palm biomass by using different concentrations of sodium hydroxide. The total yields of 5% NaOH, 10% NaOH and 20% NaOH soluble lignin from oil palm trunk and frond are 4.46% and 4.44% respectively

Durable pressure filtration membranes based on polyaniline-polyimide P84 blends

A pressure filtration membrane from conducting polymer polyaniline (PANI) is known to possess low mechanical strength and thermal stability. Therefore, it is believed that the properties of the membrane can be enhanced by blending PANI with a conventional polymer like polyimide (PI), which possesses high mechanical strength and thermal stability. A thermal analysis revealed that polymer chain of blend membranes started to break beyond the melting temperature of pure PANI membrane indicating that the addition of PI hindered the degradation of PANI and thus slowed down the decomposition process. Mechanical tests further showed that PANI/PI membrane had a tensile strength that was 60% higher than pure PANI membrane. Furthermore, the surface hydrophilicity and negativity of the blend membrane increased as it was doped in acid, thereby reflecting the exploitation of advantages of both polymers. Rejection at various molecular ranges of PEGs showed that PANI/PI membrane was initially in the ultrafiltration (UF) range, but later fell into the nanofiltration (NF) range when an acid dopant was introduced to the membrane. According to the long-term filtration performance, the PANI/PI membrane was able to sustain a rejection of up to 99% in Congo red solution with just a slight reduction in flux