Abstract
Abstract Cellulose is the most abundant renewable resource in nature, it has various industrial applications due to its promising properties. Retama raetam is a wild plant belonging to the Fabaceae family, largely abundant in arid area which makes it a good candidate for industrial utilization. In the present study, highly crystalline cellulose microfibers (77.8% CrI) were extracted from Retama Raetam stems as a novel renewable source. The samples underwent a dewaxing process, then the microfibers were extracted using 7 wt% sodium hydroxide followed by a bleaching treatment. The extracted cellulose microfibers were characterized by Scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray Diffraction and thermo-gravimetric analysis.
Highlights
Over the last few decades, The use of natural fibers instead of synthetic fibers as reinforcement materials for polymer composites has gained considerable attention because of their unique characteristics, such as renewability, biodegradability, processing flexibility, low density, high specific strength and low-cost[1,2]
Its existence as the common material of plant cell walls was first investigated by Braconnot in 1819[6] and Payen in 1838[7]. It is a polydispersed linear polymer with a microfibrillar structure composed of poly-b (1→4)-D-glucose units with a syndiotactic configuration[8,9], found in the cell walls as a network of microfibrils embedded in a non-cellulosic matrix[10]
A stepwise totally chlorine-free procedure for the isolation of cellulose microfibers from retama raetam was proposed in this paper based on that adopted by Sun et al.[21]
Summary
Over the last few decades, The use of natural fibers instead of synthetic fibers as reinforcement materials for polymer composites has gained considerable attention because of their unique characteristics, such as renewability, biodegradability, processing flexibility, low density, high specific strength and low-cost[1,2]. Its existence as the common material of plant cell walls was first investigated by Braconnot in 1819[6] and Payen in 1838[7]. It is a polydispersed linear polymer with a microfibrillar structure composed of poly-b (1→4)-D-glucose units with a syndiotactic configuration[8,9], found in the cell walls as a network of microfibrils embedded in a non-cellulosic matrix[10]. Several sources of natural fibers were investigated in detail, the isolation of cellulose fibers from R.
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