Abstract
Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) were first isolated from microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) by p-toluene sulfonic acid (p-TsOH) hydrolysis. Cellulose II nanocrystal (CNC II) and cellulose III nanocrystal (CNC III) were then formed by swelling the obtained cellulose I nanocrystal (CNC I) in concentrated sodium hydroxide solutions and ethylenediamine (EDA) respectively. The properties of CNC I, CNC II and CNC III were subjected to comprehensive characterization by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The results indicated that CNC I, CNC II and CNC III obtained in this research had high crystallinity index and good thermal stability. The degradation temperatures of the resulted CNC I, CNC II and CNC III were 300 °C, 275 °C and 242 °C, respectively. No ester bonds were found in the resulting CNCs. CNCs prepared in this research also had large aspect ratio and high negative zeta potential.
Highlights
Cellulose, the most abundant and renewable natural polymer resource in the world, is widely used nowadays for the production of daily used products and materials
The properties of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) I, CNC II and CNC III were subjected to comprehensive characterization by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Xray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA)
The results indicated that CNC I, CNC II and CNC III obtained in this research had high crystallinity index and good thermal stability
Summary
The most abundant and renewable natural polymer resource in the world, is widely used nowadays for the production of daily used products and materials. Cellulose I nanocrystal (CNC I) is widely used in gel (Aulin, Netrval, WåGberg & Lindströmc, 2010; Huang et al, 2018), photoelectric (Lv et al, 2019; Miettunen et al.,2014), energy storage (Zhu et al, 2016), medicine (Carlsson et al, 2012; Dieter et al, 2010), functional materials (Mishra et al, 2018) and other areas. CNC II can be formed by well established mercerization process, which consists of swelling CNC I in concentrated sodium hydroxide solutions for certain amount of time followed by removing the swelling agent It is an important method for producing viscose fiber and carboxymethyl cellulose, but has its significance for cellulose activation. Our previous research has shown CNC I produced by P-toluene sulfonic acid (p-TsOH) hydrolysis of microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) with good thermal stability and high crystallinity index. We prepared CNC allomorphs and these samples were analyzed in terms of crystallinity index, particle size, zeta potential, morphology and thermal stability, etc
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