Microfibrillated cellulose from agricultural residues. Part I: Papermaking application

Abstract Due to their abundance, nano-scalecellulose fiber materials such as microfibrillated cellulose, serve as promising candidates for nanocomposite production. Such new high-value materials are the subject of continuing research of new products from the pulp and paper industry sector. Microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) is generally considered to be composed of fibrils with diameter in the range of 10–100 nm liberated from larger plant based cellulose fibers and have a broad range of potential applications. In this work, we evaluated the preparation of MFC from biomass wastes using a new chemical pretreatment method before applying the traditional mechanical method. Rice straw, bagasse and cotton stalk biomass wastes used in this study were chemically treated with sodium hydroxide-sodium sulphite in order to remove lignin, hemicelluloses and to isolate cellulose, which was our starting material for the preparation of MFC. MFC was isolated from the bleached materials by mechanical treatment and the resulting materials were named MFCE30. The resulting MFCE30 were characterized by optical and scanning electron microscopies (SEM), Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-Ray diffraction. Composite paper sheet samples were prepared from bleached rice straw and bagasse pulps by adding different percentages of MFCE30 and both mechanical and optical properties of the resulting papers were studied. These properties were compared with those of paper sheets conventionally prepared in the pulp and paper Egyptian industry by adding 20% wood pulp as additive.