Rheological study of Oil Palm Trunk waste as viscosifier agent on water-based mud

The Oil Palm Trunk (OPT) is one of the biggest agro-waste in Malaysia. OPT, is rich with cellulose which has potential of becoming viscosifier agent in designing WaterBased Mud (WBM) by improving the rheological properties of WBM. In this study, the cellulose was extracted by using two methods which are Method 1 (Chlorination-Bleaching Process and Mercerization Method) and Method 2 (Dewaxed-AlkalineDelignification method). The characterization of OPT cellulose is defined by FTIR analysis while the content of cellulose product is defined by using Weighting Method. In this experiment, the mud samples were formulated by presence of different weight of cellulose applied. The production method and determination of rheological properties (Viscosity, Gel Strength, Yield Point and Filtration Test) were carried out based on API mud production standards. From the analysis of the experiment results, Method 2 yields more percentage of cellulose by 43.05% while the Method 1 only yield percentage of cellulose by 37.63%. Based on FT-IR Spectrometry results, it showed that Method 2 mimicked the behavior of HEC cellulose (commercial product) which is widely used as viscosifier agent for the WBM. In addition, both Method 2 and HEC cellulose have similar functional group that appear at same spectral peaks from the FT-IR analysis. In conclusion, Method 2 cellulose shows the best and almost following with the API standard for WBM on rheological properties.