Synthesis of Carbon Nanodots from Cellulose Nanocrystals Oil Palm Empty Fruit by Pyrolysis Method

Abstract

Biomass-such as cellulose is one of the most common abundant organic materials on the Earth. Biomass has carbon chain that could be an excellent choice for the fabrication of carbon materials. Cellulose nanocrystal is nano-sized cellulose and could become the potential source in fabricating carbon nanodots that are affected by pyrolysis temperature. In fact, the size and temperature are essentially important to synthesize the carbon nanodots. This research is contributed to synthesize this material, and to investigate the effect of temperature. The percentage of cellulose nanocrystals and carbon nanodots obtained are less than 50%. Carbon nanodots are synthesized by pyrolysis method and cellulose nanocrystals are fabricated by membrane method. TEM analysis shows that cellulose nanocrystals are nano-sized. Under UV light source, the samples show fluoroscencing colours i.e. blue to green. From this research it can be concluded that the temperature affects the characteristics of carbon nanodots produced by pyrolysis method.