Effect of Particle Size from Oil Palm Wood Powder as Pore Forming
Agent on Porosity and Hardness of Porous Ceramics based on Clay
and Polyvinyl Alcohol
Marpongahtun
*
, Darwin Yunus Nasution and T. Hidayat
Chemistry Departement University of Sumatera Utara, Medan, North Sumatera , Indonesia
Keywords: Porous Ceramic, Polyvinyl Alcohol, Clay, Pore Forming Agent.
Abstract: Preparation of porous ceramics based on polyvinyl alcohol and clay has been carried out by using oil palm
wood powder as a pore forming agent. Porous ceramics are made with a composition: 80% clay, 15% PVA
and 5% oil palm wood powder. The size of the particles of palm oil wood powder is varied, namely 100,
150 and 200 mesh. The sintering process is carried out at a temperature of 1000 °C with a holding time of 2
hours. The chemical composition of clay is determined by EDX analysis. The porous ceramics produced
were tested for porosity and hardness. The result shows that the particle size of oil palm wood powder is
very influential on the hardness and porosity of the ceramic. The larger the mesh size of the particles of oil
palm (the smaller the particle size) the higher the hardness of the ceramic, but the porosity is getting
smaller.
1 INTRODUCTION
Polymer Porous ceramics are ceramics that have
many pores so that the fluid can be absorbed into it.
Porous ceramics, besides being able to absorb
liquids and gases, are also relatively more resistant
to high temperatures, corrosion and contamination of
foreign matter, so that they can be used in various
fields of application such as motorized vehicle
exhaust gas filters. The quality of a porous ceramic
product is largely determined by the pore size and
the sintering temperature. Pore formation can be
done by mixing ceramic raw materials with pore-
forming agents based on organic materials such as
cellulose. At the time of sintering at high
temperatures the organic material will be oxidized to
carbon dioxide gas which escapes out of the ceramic
so that a small cavity is formed on the ceramic.
Agricultural wastes or industrial waste used as pore
forming agents are graphite (ALI et al., 2017), rice
husk ash (P.Sebayang, 2009), industrial fly ash
waste (Dong et al., 2010), paper waste (Dasgupta
and Das, 2002), potato starch (Sengphet et al., 2013)
and Kenaf Powder (de Oliveira et al., 2015).
The oil palm stem waste originating from the
rejuvenation of oil palm plantations is mostly found
in North Sumatra. The main components contained
in oil palm stems are cellulose (39.77%), pentose
(21.53%), lignin (18.10%), water (12.05%) ash
(2.20%), SiO2 (0.71%). Based on the composition of
the palm oil stem, which is mostly an organic
compound, where high temperatures will be
converted into gases, the oil palm stem can be a
potential source of pore-forming agents.
In this study, palm oil stem waste powder was
used as a pore-forming agent in the manufacture of
porous ceramics which as far as is known has never
been done. It is estimated that oil palm stem powder
will be a good pore forming agent because it
contains a lot of organic compounds such as
cellulose, starch and lignin which at the sintering
temperature will be oxidized to gases, especially
carbon dioxide gas. This carbon dioxide gas will
come out of the ceramic material and will leave
pores on the ceramic produced. The number and size
of ceramic pores can be adjusted by varying the
particle size of the oil palm stem powder (100, 150
and 200 mesh). Next will be the characterization and
testing of resistance and porosity. It is hoped that
high quality porous ceramics will be obtained.
Marpongahtun, ., Yunus Nasution, D. and Hidayat, T.
Effect of Particle Size from Oil Palm Wood Powder as Pore Forming Agent on Porosity and Hardness of Porous Ceramics based on Clay and Polyvinyl Alcohol.
DOI: 10.5220/0008925902930296
In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Chemical Science and Technology Innovation (ICOCSTI 2019), pages 293-296
ISBN: 978-989-758-415-2
Copyright
c
2020 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
293
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
2.1 Materials
Clay is obtained from Wonosari Village,
TanjungMorawa Sub-District, DeliSerdang District.
Oil palm stem powder originated from Southeast
Aceh District, Poliviniyl Alcohol produced by
Sigma Aldrich.
2.2 Methods
2.2.1 Preparation of Palm Oil Stem Powder
The oil palm stems used are oil palm stems resulting
from the rejuvenation of oil palm plantations.
Furthermore, the outer bark of the oil palm stem skin
is peeled and it is cut into smaller sizes. The inside
of the palm oil stem is dried and then made into
powder with sizes 100, 150 and 200 mesh and then
soaked in water for 24 hours. Then dried until the
water content is below 5%.
2.2.2 Clay Treatment
Clay is dried using an oven for 30 minutes at 105
o
C.
The dried clay is smoothed using a ball mill and
sieved with a 200 mesh size sieve. Then weigh 10
grams, put it into a glass beaker and add 40 mL of
37% HCl solution. The mixture is stirred using a
magnetic stirrer at 70
o
C for 40 minutes. After the
stirring process is complete, filtering is done using
filter paper. Then the residue is put in a glass beaker
andadd 40 mL of 15% NH
4
OH solution, stirred,
filtered and dry for 4 hours at 70
o
C. Furthermore, the
chemical composition ofthe clay that has been
treated (activated) is determined by EDX analysis.
2.2.3 Manufacturing of Porous Ceramic
Manufacturing of porous ceramics is done by mixing
and stirring until homogeneous clay, oil palm stem
powder and PVA with a percent ratio of clay: oil
palm stem powder: PVA is 80: 15: 5. Variations in
particle size of oil palm wood are 100, 150 and 200
mesh. Then the dough is pressed with a pressure of
300 M.Pa with a hold time of 10 minutes. Then the
specimen was removed from the mold and sintered
at 1000 ° C for 2 hours. The porous ceramic material
produced is determined by its porosity and
morphology (Gregorová et al., 2009) (Putri et al.,
2018).
2.3 Characterization
2.3.1 Hardness of Porous Ceramics
Ceramic hardness is determined using Digital
Vickers Hardness Tester TH723/724 Closed-loop
control system The hardness’s calculated using the
following formula: Hardness = 1.854(F/D
2
), with D
2
the area of the indentation (measured in square
millimetres) and F = the applied load (measured in
kilograms-force)
2.3.1 Porosity of Porous Ceramics
Measurement of ceramic porosity is carried out
by weighing the dry weight of the ceramic, then
soaking the ceramic in water for 24 hours, after the
ceramic has been dried with a cloth and then
weighed again. Ceramic porosity is calculated using
the formula:
%100]
20
)1
[ x
WW
WW
P
−
−
=
(1)
P = porosity of ceramics
W
1
= wet sample weight
W
2
= dry sample weight
W
0
= sample weight in water
3 RESULT AND DISCUSSION
3.1 The Oil Palm Wood Powder
The particle sizes of oil palm stem powder particles
are 100, 150 and 200 mesh. The results are shown in
Figure 1.
3.2 Clay
Prior to ceramic printing, the clay raw material is
first activated with 37% Chloride Acid. Activation
aims to increase the size of the pores of the clay so
that the absorption of clay fluid increases. Figure 2
shows clay before and after activation.
ICOCSTI 2019 - International Conference on Chemical Science and Technology Innovation
294
Figure 1: Oil palm stem powder (a) 100, (b) 150, (c) 200
mesh.
Figure 2: a) Clay before activation b) Clay after activation.
Table 1: Ceramic composition.
No
Composition
Particle size
(Mesh)
Clay
OPTP
PVA
1
80
15
5
100
2
80
15
5
150
3
80
15
5
200
Table 2: Ceramic properties.
No
Porosity (%)
1
27
2
22
3
20
Table 3: Chemical element composition of clay after
activation.
Element
Percentage
Si
23.72
Al
15.80
O
47.94
Fe
5.53
C
5.09
K
0.87
Ti
0.66
Mg
0.59
Elemental Analysis of activated clay were obtained by
EDX analysis. Elemental composition were listed in Table
3.
3.3 Porous Ceramic
Porous ceramics are made with a weight percent
ratio of clay: PVA: oil palm stem powder 80: 15: 5.
Variation is the particle size of oil palm stem powder
is 100, 150 and 200 mesh. Then sintered at 1000
o
C
for 2 hours. The results can be seen in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Porous ceramics with particle sizeoil palm stem
powder a) 100 b) 150 c) 200 mesh.
3.4 Porosity of Porous Ceramics
There is a correlation between particle size of palm
oil stem powder and porosity and hardness of
ceramics. The smaller the particle size of oil palm
stem powder, the size of porosity increases while the
hardness decreases (Putri et al., 2018) (Zhi-, 2012).
This means that if the porosity rises, the cavity in the
ceramic material will increase so that the resistance
to pressure decreases. On the one hand, with
increasing porosity, it is estimated that the
absorption capacity will increase.
Effect of Particle Size from Oil Palm Wood Powder as Pore Forming Agent on Porosity and Hardness of Porous Ceramics based on Clay
and Polyvinyl Alcohol
295
3.5 Ceramics Morphology
The porous ceramics produced were tested for SEM
to evaluate of the morphology of ceramics. The
SEM photographs are shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Photograph SEM of Porous Ceramics a) 100 b)
150 and c) 200 mesh.
From the SEM photograph, it can be seen that the
larger the particle size the larger the ceramic pore is
formed (Korjakins, Upeniece and Bajare, 2006)
(Sandra, Budi and Sulsilo, 2014) Photo SEM in
figure a shows a larger pore size compared to images
b and c. This is in accordance with the smaller
particle size of the coconut stem powder.
4 CONCLUSIONS
Porous ceramics can be made from clay and PVA by
using palm oil stem powder as a regulating agent
and pore forming. The particle size of palm oil
powder has a significant effect on the hardness and
porosity of the ceramic. The smaller the powder size
the stronger the ceramic but the porosity decreases.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Author would like to thank to Rector of University
of Sumatera Urara for the funding from the project
of PD-TALENTA 2018.
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