Synthesis of polyurethane from oil palm cellulose / Nor Afifah Kamarapani

The biomass waste are mostly generated by Asian countries such as Malaysia and
other countries that produce palm oil as economic sources. By using this biomass
waste for create new products also can reduce environmental pollution where the
old and dead palm oil trees mostly will be burn since it cannot decompose to the
soil. This experiment is to synthesis the polyurethane from cellulose by exraction
of sawdust from palm oil fronds by using ethanol-toluene to remove essential oil
and other subtances. The sawdust then undergoes bleaching process which to
remove lignin where sodium chlorite is used as bleaching reagent to make the
cellulose in white powder. The white powder cellulose that obtained react with
ethylene glycol producing glycoside. Glycoside react with palm oil to form
polyols. Toluene diisocyanate (TDI) was used to react with polyols to form.
polyurethane. Polyurethane that obtained was analyzed by using FTIR. The result
shows that polyurethane can be formed by using cellulose of oil palm fronds