Abstract
Cellulose is the most abundant natural polymer on earth. With the increasing shortage of oil resources, people have been focusing more on producing natural cellulose. In this study, guaiacol was used as the model compound to investigate the degradation of lignin in luffa. A new cellulose material was extracted from natural luffa by a pretreatment based on the oxidation and acidity of glow discharge plasma in water. The produced luffa cellulose was dissolved in anhydrous phosphoric/polyphosphoric acid (aPPAC) solvent to prepare cellulose film. Results showed that the reactive species of OH·, HO2· and H3O+ were produced during the plasma discharge of water. The free radicals ·OH were useful in eliminating lignin by the destruction of aromatic structure, whereas H3O+ in eliminating hemicellulose in the luffa raw material. At the conditions of luffa powder concentration of 9.26 g/L, discharge time of 20 min, and plasma power of 100W, the cellulose component was increased to 81.2%. After 25 min, the luffa cellulose was completely dissolved in the aPPAC solvent at 0–5 °C. Thus, a regenerated cellulose film of cellulose II was prepared. The aPPAC solvent was a good non-derivatizing solvent for the luffa cellulose. The regenerated film exhibited good mechanical properties, wettability and a compact structure. Therefore, plasma pretreatment was an environmentally friendly and high-efficiency method for luffa degumming. The luffa cellulose can be well used in dissolution and regeneration in films.
Highlights
Cellulose is the most abundant natural polymer on earth
After the reaction of the plasma-treated water with crystal violet (CV), the absorbency peaks of solution (b) remarkably decrease compared with solution (a)
The results showed that the OH· and H3 O+ reactive species were produced during plasma discharge
Summary
Cellulose is the most abundant natural polymer on earth. With the increasing shortage of oil resources, people focus more on developing natural cellulose existing in plants, minerals, sea elements, etc. Over the last few years, a number of researchers were involved in investigating the exploitation of natural cellulose from plant fibers due to their affordability and recyclability. Some of these plant fibers have been extensively investigated and widely used as materials in textile or chemical fiber industries (e.g., bamboo and hemp). Luffa is a vascular bundle of dried ripe luffa fruits that have a three-dimensional fiber layer and a unique porous physical structure [1] Nowadays, it is widely employed as filter and adsorption material for dye and metal ions [2,3].
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