Characterization of Micro-fibrillated Cellulose Produced from Sawmill Wastage: Crystallinity and Thermal Properties

Abstract

In this work, micro-fibrillated cellulose (MFC) was prepared from sawdust and characterized by FTIR, WAXRD, and TGA. The MFC was synthesized by several steps such as alkali treatment, followed by NaClO 2 bleaching and acid hydrolysis. The acid hydrolysis was performed by three different H 2 SO 4 concentrations (1N, 3N and 5N) whereas other conditions were remained unchanged. MFC were exhibited the identical peaks in FTIR spectra. The oxidation reaction took place during the MFC preparation by using high concentrations of acid which was detected by FTIR spectra. The crystallinity index of prepared MFC was measured by peaks at 16.2º and 22.2º ( 2θOriginal Research Article angles) of WAXRD curves. The crystallinity index was increased with acid concentration up to 1N H 2 SO 4 and thereafter decreased. The TGA results showed that the MFC degrade earlier temperature compare to the bleached pulp. The peaks of differential thermo-gravimetric curves (DTG) were shifted to lower temperature with the increase of acid concentration during hydrolysis of bleached pulp.

Hydrophobized MFC as Reinforcing Additive in Industrial Silica/SBR Tire Tread Compound

“…The unmodified MFCs exhibited very high cellulose content of up to 95% as indicated by glucan content (Table 3) and low hemicellulose content of about 3% (indicated by xylan and mannan) and low Klason lignin of 0.3%. As a result, a high crystallinity index (CI) of up to 75% for the cellulose-rich MFCs was measured (Figure 4), which is consistent with what has been reported for unbleached pulps and MFCs produced from unbleached pulps [23][24][25]. The XRD patterns shown in Figure 4 indicate the transformation of the cellulose crystal structure with an increase in DS after chemical modification.…”