Morphology and structure of sawdust waste after adding magnetic nanoparticles

¹ Center of Excellence for Cellulose Composite (CECCom), Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universitas Negeri Malang, Jl. Semarang 5, Malang 65145, Indonesia
² Research Center of Science and Engineering (PSR), LPPM, Universitas Negeri Malang, East Java, Indonesia
³ Department of Aquatic Resources Management, Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences, Brawijaya University, East Java, Indonesia
⁴ Doctoral program of Environment Science, Post Graduate School, Brawijaya University, East Java, Indonesia
⁵ Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Saveetha School of Engineering, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences (SIMATS), Chennai, India
⁶ Faculty of Chemical Engineering Technology, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Malaysia

^* Corresponding author: heru.suryanto.ft@um.ac.id

Abstract

Sengon (Albizia chinensis) is a type of forest plant that grows quickly and is widely used to meet human needs. The large number of uses of Sengon wood causes sengon wood waste, such as sawdust, to increase. The study’s aim is to analyze the morphology and structure of sawdust waste after adding magnetic (Fe3O4) nanoparticles. The methods include collecting sawdust waste from wood (Sengon) was conducted by the crushing process to get smaller sawdust sizes. Alkalization was applied to sawdust and followed by a bleaching process. The powder is then immersed in a solution containing magnetic (Fe3O4) nanoparticles of 10wt%, and then dried. Sawdust composite powder the analyzed using X-ray diffraction and electron microscope instruments. The result indicates that magnetic nanoparticles deposit on sawdust powder and then make the powder become rougher. Higher content of magnetic nanoparticles causes higher agglomeration. The diffraction pattern with 2θ of 14, 16, and 22 indicates that the structure of sawdust is cellulose 1β. The degree of crystalline of sawdust powder reduces from 76.1% to 73.3% after adding magnetic nanoparticle. In the future, these composite powder results will develop as flocculants for wastewater treatment.