Preparation and Characterization of Cellulose N anocrystal Extracted from Palm Fibers

Abstract

Abstract Cellulose in the nano-range or the so called nanocelluose has attracted the attention of many researchers because of its unique properties. ln this research, nanocellulose crystals were prepared by acid hydrolysis. The cellulose used in this study was extracted from palm fibers using nitric acid and ethanol in a ratio of 1:4 in three stages, and the reaction time in each stage was 20 min at the boiling temperature. The yield of cellulose in this process was 69%. Then the extracted cellulose was hydrolyzed with sulfuric acid (65%) at 45C° for 2h. The extracted cellulose and nanocellulose was characterized using Fourier infiared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. The results of the FT-IR analysis showed that both hemicellulose and lignin were removed from the sample and that it became similar to commercial cellulose. The results of XRD analysis showed that crystalline cellulose was obtained, and the crytallinity index (CI) was calculated for each of the extracted cellulose and the nanocellulose and were (38.43%), (56.36%) respectively. Which confirms that there is an increase in the crystallization value of nanocellulose. The size of crystals for each extracted cellulose and nanocellulose were calculated and were (3.l6nm) and (3.37nm), respectively. The increase in the size of crystal in nanocellulose was found to be due to the fact that chemical treatment with sulfuric acid leads to increase in the size of crystal.