Cellulose is the most abundant polymeric raw material and has attracted researcher’s eye for use in industries. Cellulose is the main component of many natural fibres like cotton, flax, hump, jute, rice straw; sisal etc. Cellulose extraction from natural fibre like cotton and rice straw has become readily significant. Herein, we have extracted cellulose from rice straw and cotton linter by treatment with alkali and purified accordingly. We have used both high amount cellulose content (cotton) and low to moderate amount cellulose content (rice straw) for our study. The cotton contains about 90% cellulose while rice straw contains 35% cellulose. Cotton linters have very negligible amount of lignin and hemicellulose while rice straw contains a proportion of these two. The extraction of cellulose includes pre-treatment, acid hydrolysis and bleaching followed by washing, filtration and drying. We have successfully synthesized various cellulose derivatives such as cellulose-phosphate, cellulose-carbamate and cellulose-formate. Furthermore, we have prepared cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) through controlled acid hydrolysis (with 58% H<sub>2</sub>SO<sub>4</sub>) of the macro crystalline cellulose extracted from cotton. Thermal degradation study indicates that the thermal degradation temperature is less in case of cellulose nanocrystals compared to macro crystal cellulose. This was due to the absence of amorphous region in the cellulose nanocrystals. This work indicates that value addition of biomass can be achieved through cellulose extraction as cellulose has potential of great use in industries as well as further research in future.

Study of cellulose extraction, derivatization, and nanocrystal formation

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.