Cellulose nanocrystals derived from Enteromorpha prolifera and their use in developing bionanocomposite films with water-soluble polysaccharides extracted from E. prolifera

Abstract The biomass from Enteromorpha prolifera is used to exploit and transfer this common green bloom algae into new value-added products. In this work, cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) were first prepared with the cellulose extracted from the biomass of E. prolifera . Initially, cellulose was treated by alkali and bleaching treatments. Subsequently, CNCs were isolated by acid hydrolysis with different concentrations. Structural changes and crystallinity were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis and t thermogravimetric analysis. The crystallinity index and crystallite size of the prepared CNCs depended mainly on acid concentrations. TEM observation revealed that the CNCs obtained by hydrolysis with 60% acid (CNC60) exhibited a ‘needle-like’ nanocrystals with a length of 177 ± 12 nm and width of 3 ± 1 nm, indicating that the CNC60 had a high ratio aspect and could serve as reinforcement nanofiller. Further investigation showcased that the addition of CNC60 exhibited the best effect for enhancing the mechanical properties of bionanocomposite films derived from the water-soluble polysaccharides extracted from the biomass of E. prolifera . Therefore, a new strategy was offered in this study for the comprehensive utilization of E. prolifera biomass to fabricate them into high-strength film materials.