Abstract

Synthesis, Structural and Morphological Studies of Pine Cone Powder by Fenton Oxidation and Grafting With Acrylic Acid Using Ammonium Ceric Nitrate as Initiator

Author(s): Mabaso N, Naidoo B, Ofomaja A and Chiririwa H

Chemical grafting of acrylic acid onto pine cone powder was carried out using free radical initiation. Pre-treatment with Fenton oxidation was used for the removal of plant organic components an enhancement of the accessibility of cellulose for ceric ammonium nitrate initiator and monomer. The effects of temperature, monomer (Acrylic Acid), initiator (CAN), time, acid (HNO3) and mass of pine were investigated. The optimum conditions were 70°C, monomer ratio 7:10, initiator 1 g, Fenton pine cone powder 1 g, 0.9 mol/L HNO3 and time was 60 minutes. Acetone and tetrahydrofuran (THF) was used to remove homopolymer from the graft copolymer. A relatively high percentage of grafting was achieved when optimum reaction conditions were used. The Fenton pre-treatment of the pine cone powder before grafting provided hydroxyl radical, which improved grafting efficiency. Furthermore, the advantages of using CAN provided high grafting efficiency and lower amount of homopolymer formation. The grafted copolymer was characterized by FTIR, TGA, DSC, SEM, XRD and EDS analysis.