Abstract
Residual lignin affects the physical and chemical performance of lignin-containing cellulose nanofibers (LCNFs). In this work, LCNFs were prepared from sugarcane bagasse powder (SBP) through p-toluenesulfonic acid (p-TsOH) hydrolysis and the subsequent homogenization treatment. By adjusting the concentration of p-TsOH and hydrolysis temperature, LCNFs with lignin content of 4.69–17.53% were obtained, and the effects of lignin content on the chemical structure, crystallinity, size, hydrophobicity and thermal stability of LCNFs were systematically studied. With the increase of lignin content, the diameters and average water contact angles of LCNFs were increased (from 169.65 to 781.56 nm and 39.74–86.16°, respectively), while the crystallinities were decreased. The thermal stabilities of LCNFs were decided both by lignin content and the crystallinity. The by-product lignin nanoparticles (LNPs) with an average diameter of 50–500 nm were generated with LCNFs, further improving the resource utilization value of SBP. This study provides theoretical and experimental basis for the subsequent processing of films with different hydrophobic properties and materials with higher mechanical properties and thermal stability.
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Abbreviations
- LCNFs:
-
Lignin-containing cellulose nanofibers
- SBP:
-
Sugarcane bagasse powder
- p-TsOH:
-
p-Toluenesulfonic acid
- LNPs:
-
Lignin nanoparticles
- CNCs:
-
Cellulose nanocrystals
- CNFs:
-
Cellulose nanofibers
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province (No. 2020J01506) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 22008035).
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Yifan Liu: conducted major parts of the study and drafted the manuscript. Beiqiu Chen: performed the chemical reactions and physicochemical properties measurements. Yuancai Lv: analyzed most of the characterizations. Xiaoxia Ye: completed most of the figures and contributed the major revisions of the manuscript. Chunxiang Lin: developed the concept of the study and contributed the major revisions of the manuscript. Minghua Liu: contributed to the interpretation and provided experimental conditions.
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Liu, Y., Chen, B., Lv, Y. et al. Insight into the performance of lignin-containing cellulose nanofibers (LCNFs) via lignin content regulation by p-toluenesulfonic acid delignification. Cellulose 29, 2273–2287 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-022-04432-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-022-04432-w