In order to provide cost-effective, greener and more sustainable solution for dye removal, there has been a strong desire to develop adsorbents from low-cost agricultural, wood, and shellfish byproducts or wastes. Cellulose nanofibers with lateral dimensions three orders of magnitude smaller than plant cellulosic fibers is an ideal material due to large specific surface area, reactive surface of -OH groups, and high mechanical strength/weight performance. Herein, we report surface quaternized cellulose nanofibers prepared by mechanical disintegration of wood pulp that was pretreated through a reaction with epoxypropyltrimethylammonium chloride. When the trimethylammonium chloride contents on cellulose reached approximately 0.79 mmol/g, highly viscous and transparent aqueous dispersions of cellulose nanofibrils were obtained by mechanical homogenization. These quaternized cellulose nanofibrils have a size of 2-3 nm in width and 1�3 �m in length, and possess an extremely high anionic dyes adsorption capacity that increase with increasing trimethylammonium chloride contents on cellulose.

Surface quaternized cellulose nanofibrils for high-performance anionic dyes removal in water

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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