Abstract
As the most important paper packaging materials, corrugated cartons with a tremendous amount of production demonstrate several advantages and have been widely used in daily life. However, waste corrugated cartons (WCCs) are usually recycled and reused to produce new corrugated cartons, and their properties are decreased dramatically after several cycles. Therefore, recycling and converting WCCs into cellulose-based film with high value is attractive and significant. Herein, without any pretreatment, the waste old corrugated cartons were directly dissolved in ionic liquid 1-allyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride, and semitransparent cellulose-based films were successfully fabricated. It was indicated that cellulose-based films displayed better UV-shielding property and hydrophobicity than traditional cellulose films. Interestingly, the cellulose-based films regenerated from deionized water displayed higher tensile strength, elongation at break, and toughness. Their tensile strength could reach 23.16 MPa, exhibiting enormous superiority as wrapping and packaging materials to replace the petrochemical polyethylene membrane (8.95 MPa). Consequently, these renewable, biodegradable, and high-valued cellulose-based films were successfully fabricated to simultaneously realize the valorization of old corrugated cartons and supplement the petrochemical plastics.
Highlights
Petrochemical plastics, which are cheap, convenient, and durable materials, have been widely used in various fields, such as toys, electronics, furniture, construction, packaging, and wrapping [1,2,3,4]
The number of waste corrugated cartons (WCCs) fibers was decreased obviously and most fibers were disappeared after 4 h stirring at 80 ◦ C (Figure 2f), suggesting that most WCCs fibers were completely soluble in allyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride (AmimCl)
The dissolution time of WCCs was longer than that of Cotton pulp (CP), and some minor parts can be seen from the polarizing microscope (POM) after 4 h in this work, which can be attributed to the impurities stuck to the WCCs fibers
Summary
Petrochemical plastics, which are cheap, convenient, and durable materials, have been widely used in various fields, such as toys, electronics, furniture, construction, packaging, and wrapping [1,2,3,4]. Most petrochemical plastics are incinerated or landfilled at the end of their service life. It has been reported that 12% of approximately 6.3 billion tons of plastic waste was incinerated, while the plastic waste accumulated in nature or landfills was about 79% by 2015 [1]. Some of the plastic wastes have been transported from inland to oceans and amassed quickly in our food chain. They are difficult to decade due to their stable polymer chains, leading to pollutions to our environment [2,5,6]. Developing low-cost, biodegradable, and environmentally friendly materials to supplement or even replace petrochemical plastics is an urgent and meaningful task
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