Preparation of cellulose nitrate from pineapple leaf

The purpose of this research is to extract cellulose from pineapple (Ananas comosus) leaf and chemically modify the extracted cellulose to cellulose nitrate. 65% nitric acid, 98% sulphuric acid, was used to modify cellulose that has been extracted from pineapple leaf. Cellulose nitrate was obtain after nitration process. X-ray diffraction (XRD), fourier transform infrared analysis (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) were used to characterize the crystalinity, chemical, morphological and thermal properties of celluloses and also the cellulose nitrate. The results of characterizations indicated that, there is changes of functional group after modification process of extracted cellulose, extracted cellulose has high crystallinity compared to modified celluloses nitrate, extracted cellulose is more thermal stable than modified cellulose nitrate and morphology of cellulose nitrate more fibrous than extracted cellulose. Hence, from characterization of modified cellulose nitrate, extracted cellulose was succesfully chemically modified.