A strategy for introducing biomass naringin molecules into regenerated cellulose fibers: Construction of both low fibrillation tendency and high strength lyocell fibers

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Lyocell fiber is regarded as one of the most representative green fibers, which has higher strength than other regenerated cellulose fibers, but is easily fibrillated when produced. Here, we developed a strategy to strengthen lyocell fiber by the strong interaction between the small molecules of biomass and polymeric cellulose chain networks. The green biomass naringin molecules containing phenolic hydroxyl structures are introduced into the solvent (N-methyl morpholine-N-oxide, NMMO) system of producing lyocell fiber, and the rational arrangement of naringin and cellulose molecular chains is precisely controlled through fiber-forming process of dry-jet-wet spinning and wet-drafting. Due to the interaction of strong hydrogen bond between naringin and cellulose molecules, the strength, toughness and Young’s modulus of the obtained composite fibers reached 500.78 ± 33.57 MPa, 28.16 ± 4.65 MJ/m3 and 23.06 ± 1.01 GPa, respectively, which were 86.96 %, 44.86 % and 48.97 % higher than those of pure lyocell fibers. In addition, naringin molecules have two directional (the longitudinal and transverse direction) bonding effects, which not only improves the mechanical performance of the fiber, but also reduces the fibrillation. The simultaneously improvement of mechanical performance and the reduction of fibrillation tendency are unprecedented in related studies, which contributes to the production of better performance lyocell fibers.