Fabrication of Composite Membrane with Microcrystalline Cellulose from Lignocellulosic Biomass as Filler on Cellulose Acetate Based Membrane for Water Containing Methylene Blue Treatment

The development of MCC as a filler in composite membranes is an effort to replace metal or metal oxide-based fillers, which are feared to cause new problems if leaching occurs during filtration. MCC has been successfully isolated from three lignocellulosic biomasses, namely water hyacinth (WH), sengon wood (SW), and kapok fiber (KF). In the process of making composite membranes, the source and amount of MCC were varied to determine the effect on the characteristics and performance of the resulting composite. The characterization results showed that adding 1% MCC_WH increased the tensile strength of the membrane from 1.13 to 3.05 N·mm-2 and adding 1% MCC_KF reduced the membrane contact angle from 65 to 52o. Membranes with MCC have shown better performance than pure cellulose acetate membranes which were able to increase water flux to 82–88 L·m-2·h-1 and MB rejection up to 76–99%.