Development of Nano-hybrid Cellulose Acetate/TiO₂ Membrane for Eugenol Purification from Crude Clove Leaf Oil

Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, University of Diponegoro, Jl. Prof. Sudharto, Tembalang, Semarang, 50239, Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: tdkusworo@che.undip.ac.id

Abstract

Chemical separation and purification are the important part of the chemical industry which consumes up to 70% energy cost. The separation technology such as distillation and absorption are well known in essential oil purification. The purification of clove leaf oil needs an attention because the current technology still consumes high energy and produces chemical wastes. The employment of membrane separation for clove leaf purification is a novel concept that needs many improvements. The main problem of polymeric membrane utilization is eugenol ability to dissolve the polymer membrane. Cellulose acetate is one of membrane polymers that is insoluble in eugenol. This paper reveals the performance of nanohybrid CA/TiO₂ membrane for eugenol purification. The stability of produced membrane as an organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) is evaluated in this study. The SEM image result shows that fabricated membrane has an asymmetric structure of membrane sub-layer. The different nano-particles loading shows the variation of permeate fluxes, the increase of nano-particles in polymer blend tends to increase the permeability. Thus, this study provides an overview of the potential CA/TiO₂ for OSN development by incorporating inorganic nano-particles in membrane polymers for eugenol purification that can be integrated in upstream separation process.