No abstract

Cellulose extracted from Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunches has been successfully modified by amino-based and oxirane-based silylating compounds. The modified and unmodified cellulose was incorporated into polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membranes through the phase-inversion. The resulted membranes were further analyzed using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) to distinguish the thermal properties, including melting temperature and crystallinity of the membranes. Moreover, the water uptake properties of the membranes were discussed in this study. The melting temperature of each membrane is not significantly different. However, PVDF/CellGPTMS has better thermal properties compared to others. The presence of cellulose and its modified product within PVDF membranes improved the crystallinity of the membranes.