Abstract:
Presently, development of biodegradable materials is one of the most popular topics in the field of materials science because of the adverse effects of plastics. Cellulose crystals (CC) as fillers in bio-composites have recently gained much interest amongst researchers for its promising qualities like improving elasticity and viscosity, rheological properties, and biodegradability. In present research, cellulose crystal has been extracted from jute using two steps of pretreatment. At first the raw jute fiber was ground and alkali treated with 15% sodium hydroxide for 1.5 hours. Then the resultant fiber was washed until neutral and bleached with 50% pure hydrogen peroxide for 1.5 hours. After the pretreatment, acid hydrolysis was done using 64% pure sulfuric acid for 15 minutes to produce pure cellulose crystal. The cellulose crystal was then freeze dried and used as reinforcement in a recently developed biodegradable composite from jute. The purchased jute polymer was dissolved and reinforced with cellulose crystal at 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 wt.% loading. The characteristics of the synthesized CC was studied using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The results show that pure cellulose crystal was found, and micrographs showed presence of microscale particles with tear in the surface. For characterization of the films Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis was used. The results showed that the reinforcement did not introduce any new functional groups and did not help increase the crystallinity of the films. The SEM micrographs showed that CC loading up to 0.2% helped reduce the pore formation, however increasing the CC loading any further caused agglomeration and pores. Thermal characteristics of the reinforced composite films was tested using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and tensile properties were tested using UTM. The results show that the thermal and tensile properties increased up to 0.2% CC loading. The composites were tested for biodegradability and all the films degraded in soil after 100 days and the adding of cellulose crystal decreased degradation rate. Water absorption test revealed that the composites had a very high-water absorbance and the adding of cellulose crystal increased water absorption.
