Sintesis superabsorben melalui kopolimerisasi pencangkokan dan penautan silang onggok dengan akrilamida

Abstract

Solid wastes of tapioca is known as onggok. This study is aiming to see a possibility to increase the value of onggok by transforming it into a superabsorbent polymer through grafting cross-linking copolymerization of acrylamide as a monomer, N,N’-methylenebisacrylamide as a cross-linker, and ammonium persulfate as an initiator. Onggok was used as a backbone in grafting and cross-linking copolymerization. The copolymerization was conducted at 70oC for 3 hours and the copolymer was saponified with NaOH 1M for 2 hours. Water absorbency capacity of the saponified copolymer as well as unsaponified copolymer thereafter were measured. The saponified copolymer showed significant difference in absorbency capacity, i.e. 28.92 g/g and 1040.08 g/g, for unsaponified and saponified copolymer, repectively. This was obtained from copolymer composed of 25% onggok, 75% acrylamide, 25 mg N,N’-methylenebisacrylamide, and 250 mg ammonium persulfate. The occurrence of grafting cross-linking copolymer was confirmed by fourier transformed infrared spectra, where it was found to exhibit all characteristic bands of both polysaccharide fractions of onggok and acrylamides units.