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).

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg