Sri Hartati

By Rudi Dungani, Pingkan Aditiawati, Sri Aprilia, Karnita Yuniarti, Tati Karliati, Ichsan Suwandhi and Ihak Sumardi

Oil palm are among the best known and most extensively cultivated plant families, especially Indonesia and Malaysia. Many common products and foods are derived from oil palm, its making them one of the most economically important plants. On the other hand, declining supply of raw materials from natural resources has motivated researchers to find alternatives to produce new materials from sustainable resources like oil palm. Oil palm waste is possibly an ideal source for cellulose-based natural fibers and particles. Generally, oil palm waste such as oil palm empty fruit bunches, oil palm trunk, oil palm shell and oil palm ash are good source of biomaterials. Lack of sufficient documentation of existing scientific information about the utilization of oil palm waste raw materials for biomaterial production is the driving force behind the this chapter. Incorporation of various types of biomaterial derived from oil palm waste resources as reinforcement in polymer matrices lead to the development of biocomposites products and this can be used in wide range of potential applications. Properties and characterization of biomaterial from oil palm waste will not only help to promote further study on nanomaterials derived from non-wood materials but also emphasize the importance of commercially exploit oil palm waste for sustainable products.

Part of the book: Palm Oil

By Atanu Kumar Das, Md. Nazrul Islam, Md. Omar Faruk, Md. Ashaduzzaman, Rudi Dungani, Enih Rosamah, Sri Hartati and Alfi Rumidatul

Tannins are found in widely distributed species of plants, and it protects plant from predators and pests. There are three major groups of tannins, that is, hydrolyzable, complex, and proanthocyanidins. Tannins are being used as a significant element for the tanning of animal hides in the leather production industry from the beginning of tannin industry. Then, these have been used for mineral absorption and protein precipitation purposes since the 1960s. Tannins are used for iron gall ink production and wood-based industry as adhesive and anticorrosive, recovering uranium from seawater and removing mercury and methylmercury from solution. In addition, tannins are considered as bioactive compound in nutrition science, and their possible effects on health are to be identified. This chapter outlines the structural and biological properties of hardwood tannins to indicate the positive utilization of them. It also describes the contemporary information on tannins.

Part of the book: Tannins

By Pingkan Aditiawati, Rudi Dungani, Salsabila Muharam, Aminudin Sulaeman, Sri Hartati, Mustika Dewi and Enih Rosamah

Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast (SCOBY) is a by-product in the form of cellulose polymers produced by bacteria in the kombucha fermentation process. Until now, SCOBY products still have application limitations. Several world designers have succeeded in making works using fabrics based on SCOBY. The resulting fabric has a flexible texture and is brown like synthetic leather. Fabrics based on SCOBY are also considered cheap and more environmentally friendly with short production time. The use of SCOBY as a fabric base material still has problems, where the fabric produced from SCOBY kombucha, directly through the drying process, has the characteristic of being very easy to absorb water. Another problem is that SCOBY production in the kombucha fermentation process is difficult to achieve a uniform thickness and SCOBY production in a large surface area is also difficult to stabilize. The development of SCOBY into cellulose fibers can be done by first changing the structure of SCOBY into nanocellulose. This nanocellulose production can then be developed into nanocellulose fibers in the form of threads and then spun to become a complete fabric. The production of nanocellulose is carried out using cellulase enzymes. It is known that cellulase enzymes can be obtained through the growth of bacteria or specific fungi. One of the groups of fungi and bacteria commonly used to produce cellulase enzymes are Trichoderma and Bacillus.

Part of the book: Nanofibers