Abstract—Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch (OPEFB), a waste from Oil Palm tree is the most waste products which can be found abundantly on earth that leads to contamination. Cellulose Phosphate (OPEFB-CP) which is derived from the process known as phosphorylation possesses good attribute to be diversified in bone graft functioning as natural polymer. Sol-gel process is chosen to produce porous bone scaffold where it is essential to the OPEFB-CP to get dissolved before reacting with coupling agent. The main problem for the natural polymer is, it cannot be melted or easily dissolved in any common or cheap solvents to be applied in various potential application. This paper will discuss specifically in dissolving the natural polymer by using Tetrabutyl Ammonium Flouride (TBAF) in Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) and analyzing results from FTIR. TBAF will be added into DMSO and heated and evenly stirred beginning at the lowest temperature, 60°C and OPEFB-CP was added to the mixture solution until clear solution is produced. The characterization of cellulose solution from FTIR showed obvious different pattern with solid OPEFB-CP that proved cellulose was completely dissolved in mixture of TBAF/DMSO solution. FTIR results show no peak at wavenumbers 2385cm^-1 but still remain two other peaks at wavenumbers 1377cm^-1 and 1021cm^-1. The observation obtained from the experimental works also concluded that the dissolution rate of cellulose is linear with the temperature increase starting from 60°C with changes in the solution color.

Index Terms—Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch-Cellulose Phosphate (OPEFB-CP), TBAF, DMSO, natural polymer, FTIR

Cite: Eliza M. Yusup, Shahruddin Mahzan, Noormaziah Jafferi, and Chung Wee Been, "The Effectiveness of TBAF/DMSO in Dissolving Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch-Cellulose Phosphate," Journal of Medical and Bioengineering, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 165-169, April 2015. Doi: 10.12720/jomb.4.2.165-169