Abstract
The growing concerns about global warming and depleting petroleum reserves have made scientists/researchers focus more on the use of natural fibres such as Maize cob, bagasse, coir, sisal among others. About 180 kg of cobs are obtained from each ton of maize shelled which has little utilization or no utilization. This study utilizes maize cob from SAMMAZ-14 maize variety for the extraction of nano cellulose using Chemico-mechanical method. Alkaline hydrolysis was performed with 5% NaOH for 4hrs with MLR of 1:10. Ball milling was done for 5 hrs with BMR of 30:1. The extracted nanocellulose were characterized by thermal characterization (TG and DTG), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), Energy Disperse X-ray (EDX) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), which confirmed the extracted Maize cob nano fibres (MC-NF) were in nano scale ranging from 1-100 and 1-200nm in diameter and length respectively. Thermal analysis showed MC-NF has more thermal stability than untreated maize cob (MC-UT) whose degradation was initiated at lower temperature with higher charred formation. Morphological studies showed MC-NF has spindle like structures while the untreated maize cob (MC-UT) is plain due to high amorphous portion on the cellulosic structure.
Highlights
This resesearch aimed to isolate nano cellulose from sammaz-14 maize cob variety and to characterized it based on it morphology and thermal properties i.e Thermogravimetric Analysis, TG and DTG
The isolated maize cob nanocellulose, characterized by thermal (TG and DTG) analysis, the curves showed Maize cob nano fibres (MC-NF) has more thermal stability than untreated maize cob (MC-UT) whose degradation was initiated at a lower temperature which has higher charred residue
The low degradation temperature observed for Maize cob (MC)-UT at (277 °C) as compared to MC-NF (281 °C) is due to the presence of lignin, hemicelluloses and other non-cellulosic extracts on the MC-UT which decompose at a lower temperature,similar results were obtained by [4]
Summary
The objective of this research is to extract maize cob nano fibre from Sammaz-14 maize cobs and determine its potential use as reinforcement in polymer for bio – nanocomposites. This resesearch aimed to isolate nano cellulose from sammaz-14 maize cob variety and to characterized it based on it morphology and thermal properties i.e Thermogravimetric Analysis, TG and DTG. This work has its significance reflected both in the economic and environmental management of these wastes as maize cob is readily and abundantly available at little or no cost and ball milling is a greener and safer method
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