Morphological and Optical Properties of Polylactic Acid Bionanocomposite Film Reinforced with Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch Nanocrystalline Cellulose

Abstract

Nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) was derived from oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) by soda pulping and followed by 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxy (TEMPO) oxidation reaction method. The NCC was used as reinforcing agent in Polylactic acid (PLA) biopolymer film matrix with 0 to 20% loadings. Bionanocomposite film was prepared by dilution in Chloroform and casted on the flat glass with 0.03-0.05 mm casting thickness. TEM shows that the nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) has a rod like shape of 2-6 nm width and 200-500 nm length. SEM micrograph shows that the surface of PLA-NCC bionanocomposites has a relative good dispersion at low NCC loading (1, 3 and 5 wt.%), and a rougher surface at higher NCC loadings. The PLA bionanocomposites film as obviously seen exhibits decrease in transparency as the NCC content increased. The transparency of neat PLA film has higher transmission value compare to other PLA-NCC and tend to reduce the transmission percentage as the NCC loading increase, especially for 10 and 20%.