Production of cellulose nanostructures from Chilean bamboo, Chusquea quila
¹Department of Industrial Process Engineering, Nucleus of Research in Bioproducts and Advanced Materials, Catholic University of Temuco, Manuel Montt Street, Postal Code CL4813302 Temuco, Chile
²School of Engineering and Business, Viña del Mar University, Diego Portales Street, Postal Code CL2580022, Chile
³Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems, Aalto University School of Chemical Engineering, P.O. Box 16300, 00076 Aalto, Finland
⁴Postgraduate Department of Wood Engineering, Biomaterials and Nanotechnology Center, Bío-Bío University, Collao Avenue 1202, Postal Code CL4051381 Concepción, Chile
*Correspondence: poliveira@uct.cl
Abstract:
In Chile, bamboo bushes of Chusquea quila genus (or popularly known as ‘quila’) have brought economic and ecological problems for decades in the south-central part of this country. On the other hand, this plant species was studied as a raw material for the production of nanofibrillated cellulose (CNF) and nanocrystalline cellulose (CNC), presenting an opportunity for sustainable and environmentally friendly management, positioning Chile as a Latin American country at the forefront of studies with nanotechnological approaches. The methodology applied to generate these nanostructures contemplated hydrolysis with sulfuric acid and oxalic acid, in addition to an intermediate stage of microfluidization to generate nanofibrillated cellulose. The products obtained showed morphological and topographic homogeneity in the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) images. The diameter values of the particles ranged from 10 to 20 nanometers for the CNCs. Through Fourier transformed spectrophotometry (FTIR) it was found that the processes of microfluidization and acid hydrolysis did not affect the molecular shape of the nanostructures and X-ray diffraction (XRD) was important to determine crystallinity index (IC), presenting values higher than 80%.
Key words:
acid hydrolysis, cellulose nanocrystals, cellulose nanofibrils, Chilean bamboo, Chusquea quila