Isolation of highly purity cellulose from wheat straw using a modified aqueous biphasic system

Isolation of highly purity cellulose from wheat straw using a modified aqueous biphasic system

Abstract

Cellulose samples with molecular weights ranging from 8.39 × 10⁴ to 11.00 × 10⁴ g/mol were obtained from wheat straw. The dewaxed wheat straw was pretreated with aqueous hydrochloric acid followed by delignification using an environmentally benign poly(ethyleneglycol)/salt aqueous biphasic system. The yield of cellulose was in the range of 48.9%–55.5% and the cellulose contained 1.2%–3.2% hemicelluloses, and 0.97%–3.47% lignin. All the isolated cellulose samples could be directly dissolved in a 6 wt-% NaOH/4 wt-% urea aqueous solution through a precooling-thawing process to form a homogenous solution. The separation process was investigated and the obtained cellulose and its solution were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray apparatus, and X-ray diffraction. The results revealed that aqueous soluble cellulose can be directly prepared from wheat straw by this method and this study opens a novel pathway to prepare cellulosic materials from agricultural waste.

Keywords

cellulose / straw / separation / aqueous solution

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51073147) and the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant Nos. 2010CB923302 and 2011CB921403).

版权

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg