Abstract
Imidazole is reported to be an effective reactant for the production of nanocellulose from hardwood pulp. The morphologies and surface properties of the nanocellulose can be simply tailored according to the water content in the imidazole system: with pure imidazole, cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) in a yield of 10 wt % can be produced. With 25 wt % of water in imidazole, cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) are obtained in 20 wt % yield. Both nanocelluloses exhibit crystallinity indices in the order of 70%. Interestingly, they retain the original xylan from the pulp with ca. 9–10 wt % of residual xylan content.
Highlights
Nanocellulose is a promising bio-based building block for material design
The imidazole concentration in the aqueous solutions impacts significantly the volume of turbid fraction collected (Figure 2b) with the highest yields obtained from pure imidazole imi-0 (10 wt % yield) and from the imidazole aqueous mixture imi-25 (20 wt % yield)
The latter concentration is similar to that previously reported for the optimization of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) production from pulp with [Bmim]HSO4 [18]
Summary
Nanocellulose is a promising bio-based building block for material design It is conventionally produced by acid hydrolysis or mechanical fibrillation to yield cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) or cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs), respectively [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Many endeavors have examined alternative production methods with a view to improve material, environmental and economical efficiencies [10] Both physico-mechanical processes, such as ultrasonication [11], homogenization [12], autoclaving [13], and chemical swelling/oxidation pretreatments [14,15,16], have been designed to improve the accessibility to cellulose, facilitating further acid-attack for efficient nanocrystal production
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