Cellulose and microcrystalline cellulose from rice straw and banana plant waste: preparation and characterization

As part of continuing efforts to prepare cellulose and microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) from renewable biomass resources, rice straw and banana plant waste were used as the available agricultural biomass wastes in Egypt. The cellulose materials were obtained in the first step from rice straw and banana plant waste after chemical treatment, mainly applying alkaline-acid or acid-alkaline pulping which was followed by hypochlorite bleaching method. The results indicate a higher α-cellulose content, 66.2 %, in case of acid-alkaline treatment for rice straw compared to 64.7 % in case of alkaline-acid treatment. A low degree of polymerization, 17, was obtained for the cellulose resulting from acid–alkaline treatment for banana plant waste indicating an oligomer and not a polymer, while it reached 178 in case of the cellulose resulting from alkaline–acid treatment for the rice straw. MCC was then obtained by enzymatic treatment of the resulting cellulose. The resulting MCC show an average diameter ranging from 7.6 to 3.6 μm compared to 25.8 μm for the Avicel PH101. On the other hand, the morphological structure was investigated by scanning electron microscopy indicating a smooth surface for the resulting cellulose, while it indicates that the length and the diameter appeared to be affected by the duration of enzyme treatment for the preparation of MCC. Moreover, the morphological shape of the enzyme treated fibers starts to be the same as the Avicel PH101 which means different shapes of MCC can be reached by the enzyme treatment. Furthermore, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was used to indicate characteristic absorption bands of the constituents and the crystallinity was evaluated by X-ray diffraction measurements and by iodine absorption technique. The reported crystallinity values were between 34.8 and 82.4 %, for the resulting cellulose and MCC, and the degree of crystallinity ranged between 88.8 and 96.3 % dependent on the X-ray methods and experimental iodine absorption method.