Today, large amount of hemicelluloses are ended up in waste-streams from industrial and agricultural processes and are burnt to give energy back to the processes. Hemicelluloses have a rather low heating value and would be more valuable to use in new materials or products. After end-use the hemicelluloses can be burnt for energy contribution. The hemicellulose, arabinoxylan, can be isolated from agricultural crop residues through e.g. an alkaline extraction process. Arabinoxylan itself has a high glass transition temperature (Tg), close to its decomposition temperature, why its suitability for use in commonly available process techniques such as extrusion is low. By lowering the Tg of arabinoxylan, it can find use as a thermoplastic in a variety of products e.g. films, barriers or biocomposite materials. We have in our study looked into different ways of affecting the Tg for arabinoxylan isolated from wheat bran. Tg are known to be affected by the polymer flexibility. Two routes were tried to achieve increased flexibility, 1) oxidation of arabinoxylan and, 2) grafting of arabinoxylan with flexible substituents. Here we present the effect of the oxidation route. Variation in backbone flexibility was achieved by periodative oxidation, which opens up some of the ring-structures of the arabinoxylan. We have studying different degrees of oxidation and how it affect the Tg of arabinoxylan films. Lowering of Tg, improve its thermo-processability and by that the possibility of using hemicelluloses as new materials in commercial products.

Novel approach to achieve thermoplastic arabinoxylan

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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