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Tailoring the yield and characteristics of wood cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) using concentrated acid hydrolysis

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Abstract

Cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) have recently received much attention in the global scientific community for their unique mechanical and optical properties. Here, we conducted the first detailed exploration of the basic properties of CNC, such as morphology, crystallinity, degree of sulfation and yield, as a function of production condition variables. The rapid cellulose depolymerization and sulfation reactions under concentrated acid concentrations of around 60 wt% resulted in a very narrow operating window for CNC production. We found that CNC yields as high as 70 wt% from a bleached eucalyptus kraft pulp with glucan content of 78 wt% can be achieved under a tight range of reaction conditions and that a weighted average length of over 200 nm and sulfur content (a measure of CNC surface charge) between 3 and 10 mg/g can be produced. This study provided critical knowledge for the production of CNC with characteristics tailored for different specific applications, significant to commercialization.

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Acknowledgments

This work was conducted while Chen and Wang were visiting Ph.D students at the US Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory (FPL), Madison, WI, and on official government time of Zhu, Baez, and Hirth. This work was supported by US Forest Service. Financial support included the USDA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) Competitive Grant (No. 2011-67009-20056), Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC), Guangzhou Elite Project of China. Funding from these programs made the visiting appointments of Chen and Wang at FPL possible. We also would like to acknowledge Drs. Ulrich Baxa of Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research and Robin Harris of Johannes Gutenberg-University, Germany, for their insightful discussion on TEM images.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Lab of Pulp Paper Engineering, South China University Technology, Guangzhou, China

    Liheng Chen

  2. Biofuels Institute, School of the Environment, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China

    Qianqian Wang

  3. Forest Products Laboratory, USDA Forest Service, Madison, WI, USA

    Liheng Chen, Qianqian Wang, Kolby Hirth, Carlos Baez, Umesh P. Agarwal & J. Y. Zhu

  4. Department of Biological Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

    J. Y. Zhu

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  1. Liheng Chen
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  2. Qianqian Wang
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  3. Kolby Hirth
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  4. Carlos Baez
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  5. Umesh P. Agarwal
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  6. J. Y. Zhu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to J. Y. Zhu.

Additional information

This work was conducted on official government time of Zhu, Hirth, Baez, and Agarwal and while Chen and Wang were visiting students at the USDA Forest Products Lab.

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Chen, L., Wang, Q., Hirth, K. et al. Tailoring the yield and characteristics of wood cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) using concentrated acid hydrolysis. Cellulose 22, 1753–1762 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-015-0615-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-015-0615-1

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