Transparent Cellulose-Based Films Prepared from Used Disposable Paper Cups via an Ionic Liquid.

Xingxiang Ji,Jun Zhang,Jianfeng Peng,Guangmei Xia,Qiwen Zhou,Jie Wang,Lixiang Wang,Haq Nawaz,Zhen Xu,Jinming Zhang

doi:10.3390/polym13234209

Abstract

Paper cups are widely employed in daily life with many advantages, but most of the used paper cups are incinerated or landfilled, due to the great challenge of separating the thin inner polyethylene (PE) coating, causing the waste of energy and the pollution of our environment. Therefore, recycling and converting the used paper cups into high-value materials is meaningful and important. In this work, transparent cellulose-based films were successfully prepared from the used paper cups via 1-allyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ionic liquid after simple pretreatment. Additionally, the difference in properties and structures of cellulose-based films regenerated in different coagulation baths (water or ethanol) was also explored. It was found that the cellulose-based film possessed good thermal property and displayed better hydrophobicity than the traditional pure cellulose film. Moreover, they also demonstrated good mechanical property and the tensile strength of cellulose-based film regenerated in water can reach 31.5 Mpa, higher than those of cellulose-based film regenerated in ethanol (25.5 Mpa) and non-degradable polyethylene film (9–12 MPa), indicating their great potential as the packaging materials. Consequently, valorization of the low cost used paper cups and preparation of high-valve cellulose-based films were realized simultaneously by a facile and green process.

Highlights

Paper cups have many merits such as convenient carrying, low cost, water resistance, etc. and have been widely used in daily life and their yields increase dramatically year by year [1,2]
It is reported that China consumes over 10 billion disposable paper cups annually, while 50 billion paper cups are sold and consumed every year in the United States, indicating that many trees have been cut down to produce these paper cups and a large volume of carbon dioxide has been produced in this process [1,3]
The low-cost low-costused used paper were successfully into transparent high-value cellulose-based films by allyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride (AmimCl) method in thismethod work, where singlewhere cellulose transparent cellulose-based films solvent by AmimCl solvent in thisthe work, the molecular chain can be obtained by the synergistic effect of cations and anions

Summary

Introduction

Paper cups have many merits such as convenient carrying, low cost, water resistance, etc. and have been widely used in daily life and their yields increase dramatically year by year [1,2]. Paper cups have many merits such as convenient carrying, low cost, water resistance, etc. The used paper cups (UPCs) are always discarded as waste after use. In the UK, approximately 2.5 billion paper cups are consumed and 30,000 tons coffee paper cup waste are produced each year, while more than 7000 tons of non-recyclable UPCs waste are abandoned in Australia [1,3]. Most of the used paper cups are incinerated and landfilled at the end of their life, leading to serious environmental pollution and great waste of energy [1,2,4].

Methods

Results

Conclusion