J. Nig. Soc. Phys. Sci. 3 (2021) 140–143

Journal of the
Nigerian Society

of Physical
Sciences

Synthetic Characterization of Cellulose from Moringa oleifera
seeds and Potential Application in Water Purification

A. F. Afolabia,∗, S. S. Oluyamoa, I. A. Fuwapea

aCondensed Matter and Statistical Physics Research Unit, Department of Physics, The Federal University of Technology, P.M.B. 704, Akure, Nigeria

Abstract

The use of Moringa oleifera seeds for purifying water has been attempted locally in various forms without putting scientific potency of the material
into consideration. The cellulose sample isolated from Moringa oleifera seed was characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron
microscopy (SEM) and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The value of crystallinity index (CIr ) from the XRD pattern is 63.1%.
The high degree of crystallinity obtained is attributed to the high percentage of crystallinity index, CIr (i.e. 63.1%). The morphology revealed
aggregates of conical and needle-like structure. The FTIR revealed O–H stretching, C–H stretching vibration and C=O bond stretching functional
groups. These characteristics are indicative of the potential of the material in water purification.

DOI:10.46481/jnsps.2021.206

Keywords: Cellulose, Crystallinity, Moringa oleifera, Morphology, Water purification

Article History :
Received: 22 April 2021
Received in revised form: 27 May 2021
Accepted for publication: 03 June 2021
Published: 29 August 2021

c©2021 Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences. All rights reserved.
Communicated by: B. J. Falaye

1. Introduction

Water is a source of life and human existence depends to a
large extend on its availability. Water is obtained from differ-
ent sources such as rain, dam, river, stream, borehole, well and
lake e.t.c. The importance of water cannot be over-emphasized
in our daily living. It has a broad impact on health, food, energy,
economy and also necessary for human survival. The level of
purity of water utilized in daily life is very significant since it
has a definite effect on human health. Likewise, water is an es-
sential component of all living systems. The quality of drinking
water has become a major concern since contaminants and toxic
compounds are mostly accumulated in the body system thereby
causing serious hazard to human health. Hence, there is a need

∗Corresponding author tel. no: +2347030614850
Email address: agafolabi@gmail.com (A. F. Afolabi )

for water purification to afford access to potable water for hu-
man consumption. Imported chemicals for purifying water are
expensive and have unfavorable effects on human health [1,2].
Therefore, there is a dire need to use locally sourced and envi-
ronmentally friendly organic material for water purification.

Moringa oleifera is non-toxic and has an added favourable
opportunity over the chemical purification of water due to the
medicinal and therapeutics properties such as cholesterol lower-
ing, anti-inflammatory, antiulcer, antioxidant, antidiabetic, anti-
spasmodic, antibacterial, antihypertensive, antiepileptic, antidi-
abetic, antifungal activity, antitumor and antimicrobial proper-
ties [3-6]. Moringa has been discovered to be used in different
health care products including body and hair conditioners and
moisturizers.

Moringa oleifera is a plant material composed of lignin,
hemicellulose and cellulose [7]. Cellulose has a degree of poly-
merization of about 10,000 insoluble polysaccharide which con-

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Afolabi et al. / J. Nig. Soc. Phys. Sci. 3 (2021) 140–143 141

sist of linear chains of glucopyranose units linked by a β-1,4
glycosidic bond. The common formula is (C6H10O5)n [8]. Fur-
thermore, cellulose is a prominent structural composition of the
cell wall of different plants. Cellulose also exists in a broad
diversity of class of living, such as algae, fungi, bacteria, and
even in some sea animals such as tunicates.

A lot has been accomplished in the use of Moringa oleifera
for water purification, creating general interest in the researcher
of Moringa oleifera utilization. Despite the attractiveness of
this research, several challenges remain unresolved in the ef-
fective use of Moringa oleifera. Some of the challenges are:
Moringa oleifera seeds contain soluble organics that increase
the residual organic carbon of the treated water which may serve
as food for pathogens (microorganism that can cause harmful
effect to the body system) and the large consumption of parti-
cles of Moringa oleifera seeds precipitate into the body could
also pose health challenges to the body. In this research, all the
soluble organics and particles in Moringa oleifera seeds which
could pose health challenges to the body when consumed were
eliminated during isolation of cellulose from Moringa oleifera
seeds which give pure and refined sample. The aim of this re-
search is to identify the intrinsic potential of the cellulose of
Moringa oleifera seed for the purification of water.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Materials

The locally sourced organic material used in this research
is moringa oleifera seed. It was removed from the shell, dried,
grinded with a grinder and sieved to obtain fine particles. Pu-
rification process was adopted to isolate cellulose and remove
components that are not cellulose which include lignin, hemi-
celluloses, fats and inorganic contaminants.

Acetic acid, Sodium chlorite (NaClO2) and Sodium hydrox-
ide (NaOH) were obtained from Pascal Scientific Ltd and used
as analytical chemical reagents.

2.2. Methods

A liquor ratio of 15:1(V/W) cooking condition was em-
ployed, the Moringa oleifera seed particles was pulped with
20% of NaOH at a temperature of 90◦C for 1 hour 30 minutes.
After digestion process, the cooked pulp was filtered, screened
and cleaned by rinsing properly with water without alkali. The
pulped was left in the oven at 105◦C until the water was com-
pletely dried. 200 mL of hot water, 6g of NaClO2 and 1.5 mL
of acetic acid were mixed with 10g of bone dried sample of
pulp in a titration flask. At 70◦C, the mixture was placed in the
water bath and heated for 30 minutes. Another 6 g of NaClO2
and 1.5 mL of acetic acid were mixed and included, submitted
to heat for next 30 minutes before putting the water bath power
off. The sample remained in the water bath for 24 hours. After
digestion, it was filtered and cleaned by rinsing properly with
water until the chlorine and the acid were washed away. The
sample acquired was left in the oven at 105◦C until the water
was completely dried to obtain the cellulose.

3. Characterization

The crystallinity index of the isolated cellulose from Moringa
olienfera seeds was obtained using a Philips PW diffractome-
ter with Cu-Kα monochromator at voltage of 15kV, scanned at
wavelength λ=1.54Å with 2θ angle range from 5◦ to 90◦. The
scanning electron microscope which was used to determine sur-
face morphology was achieved using 15 kV accelerated volt-
age of JEOL/EO JSM-6390 and has a resolution up to 100µm.
The variation in functional groups was determined by fourier
transform infrared (FTIR) Spectrophotometer induced by vari-
ous treatments within a wavelength range of 700–4000cm−1.

3.1. Theoretical Background
The Interplanar spacing (d-spacing) was obtained as in equa-

tion (1) [9,10]

d =
nλ

2sinθ
(1)

where, the interplanar spacing of the crystal is d, order of
reflection is n, wavelength of the incident X-ray is λ and angle
of incidence is θ.

The crystallinity index was calculated as following equation
(2) [11,12]

CIr =
I200 − Iam

I200
× 100 (2)

where, highest peak intensity of the crystalline fractions is I200
and low intensity peak of the amorphous region is Iam.

The crystallite size (L) was calculated using Scherrer’s equa-
tion [13]

L =
K ×λ

B × S inθ
(3)

where, constant value given as 0.91 isK, wavelength of the in-
cident X-rays is λ, Bragg’s angle (◦) is θ, and intensity of the
full width at half maximum (FWHM) proportional to a high
intensity peak of the diffraction plane is B.

4. Results and Discussions

4.1. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD)
XRD pattern of isolated cellulose from Moringa oleifera

seeds revealed crystalline characteristics peaks at 2θ = 14.39◦,
15.33◦, 22.47◦ and 34.50◦, indicating the crystal structure
of cellulose I with allomorph cellulose Iβ (monoclinic) [14].
The crystalline peaks indicate that the crystal structure is at-
tributed to planes (110), (110), (200) and (004) respectively. It
shows that the occurrence of intra and inter-molecular hydro-
gen bonding in the cellulose through hydroxyl group can ignite
the arrangement of crystal order in the cellulose [15]. From the
isolated cellulose, the peaks 14.39◦ and 15.33◦ were observed
around 15◦ and the peak 15.33◦ was broad due to the amor-
phous nature of the material used [16,17]. The isolated cellu-
lose shows prominent peak at 22.47◦ which exhibited higher
crystallinity because of the efficient elimination of the amor-
phous parts. The value of crystallinity index(CIr ) is 63.1%,

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Figure 1. X-ray diffractogram of isolated cellulose from Moringa
oleifera seeds

Figure 2. Scanning electron micrograph of isolated cellulose from
Moringa oleifera seeds

Crystallite size(L) is 1.95nm, d-spacing is 3.9Å and FWHM
is 0.07331. Since the proportion of crystallinity index is high,
then the degree of crystallinity is justified to be high. The high
proportion of crystallinity index is ascribed to removal of some
of the amorphous constituents and rearrangement of the crys-
talline regions into a more ordered structure [9].

4.2. Scanning Electron Micrograph (SEM)
The morphological features of the cellulose isolated from

Moringa oleifera seeds are shown in Figure 2. The surface mor-
phology showed that the particles have conical and needle-like
feature. The isolated cellulose has an average length and diam-
eter of .2µm and 88.9µm respectively. It was disjointed from
one another, indicating the total elimination of hemicelluloses
and lignin. This is similar to previous researches on the cellu-
lose from oil palm empty fruits bunch extraction and character-
ization and cellulose nanocrystals from corncob extraction and
characterization for application as reinforcing agent nanocom-
posites [12,18].

4.3. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy
Figure 3 shows the Fourier transform infrared spectra of

the isolated cellulose. Some important functional groups oc-

Figure 3. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra of isolated cellulose
from Moringa oleifera seeds

cupied by the cellulose which however revealed basic poten-
tials of the material for water purification are highlighted. The
spectra showed wide band centered at 3311 cm−1 appointed to
O–H stretching. This functional group commonly present in
the cellulose. There is also a feature in this region from the N-
H stretching of amide group which reect the cationic tendency
of the cellulose. This is similar to the result of characterization
and use of moringa oleifera seeds as a biosorbent for removing
metal ions from aqueous effluents [19].

At 2887cm−1, there exist spectra of characteristics of C–
H stretching vibration. In the region between 1687cm−1 and
1308cm−1 there are bands appointed to C=O bond stretching.
The carbonyl group appears in the structures and there is a band
at 1610cm−1 accompanied with the amide group. The presence
of hydroxyl, carbonyl and amine groups are responsible for the
coagulative capacity in water purification [20,21].

5. Conclusion

The XRD determines the high percentage of crystallinity in-
dex of the cellulose and the degree of crystallinity was found to
be high. The XRD pattern also revealed that the crystal struc-
ture is cellulose I with allomorph cellulose Iβ (monoclinic).
The characterization of isolated cellulose using fourier trans-
form infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) revealed O–H stretching,
C–H stretching vibration and C=O bond stretching functional
groups. The presence of hydroxyl, carbonyl and amine groups
are responsible for the coagulative capacity in water purifica-
tion.

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully appreciate Dr. Ige, O.O. and Dr. Alo,
F.I. of the Department of Material Science and Engineering,
Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-ife, Osun State, Nigeria for
their effort in the analysis of the samples. Dr. Adekoya Mathew,
Mr. Olasoji, M.O. and the Department of Materials and Met-
allurgical Engineering of the Federal University of Technology,

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Akure, Nigeria are also appreciated for their support during the
period of the research.

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