Due to the shortage of petroleum reserves, the importance of developing lignocellulosic biomass for the production of fuel and chemicals that offer economic, environmental, and strategic advantages has been increasingly emphasized. Hemicelluloses, as the non-cellulose polysaccharides in plant cell wall, represent an immense renewable resource of biopolymers. The renewability, modification potential, biodegradability and nontoxicity of hemicelluloses contribute to the rapidly growing interest in hemicellulose. The hemicellulose used herein was isolated from poplar with 10% sodium hydroxide. Two processes were used to produce hemicellulose-based hydrogels. In one process, the hemicellulose was modified with a carboxymethylation reaction, in which isolated hemicellulose was activated with aqueous sodium hydroxide and reacted with sodium chloroacetate yielding the carboxymethylated hemicellulose derivative. Hemicellulose-based hydrogels were produced from carboxymethyl hemicellulose (degree of substitution (DS) range 0.04~0.68) crosslinked with N,N’-methylenebisacrylamide (MBA). As reference, hydrogel produced from unmodified hemicellulose has a 15 g/g water absorbency. The effect of DS on hydrogels absorbency ability will be discussed. In a second process, hemicellulose-based hydrogels were produced by a free radical graft polymerization with acrylic acid (AA) and acrylamide (AM) and using MBA as crosslinking agent. The effect of the ratios of hemicellulose, AA and AM on hydrogels absorbency ability will discussed. In specific, hydrogel produced with a ratio of 1:1:1 of hemicellulose: AA: AM was shown to have up to a 290 g/g water absorbency. The findings here are important steps in developing suitable hydrogels from hemicellulose for absorbency applications.<br/>

Synthesis and characterization of hemicellulose-based hydrogels

255th National Meeting (2018)

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