Abstract
In this study, cotton fiber was pretreated in aqueous NaOH/urea solution instead of dissolution. According to the increasing severity degrees of pretreatment, three kinds of pretreated cotton fibers (S-PCF, M-PCF and H-PCF) were obtained for characterization and analysis. For comparison, pretreatment using a single NaOH solution without urea was also conducted under the same conditions to obtain other pretreated fibers (S-NaCF, M-NaCF and H-NaCF). The morphology of unpretreated (UCF) and pretreated cotton fibers (PCFs and NaCFs) was analyzed by SEM, and the results showed that when pretreated by NaOH aqueous solution with or without urea, the cotton fiber presented both a convolution structure and a coarser surface, resulting from the decreasing of fibrils on the fiber surface. A further morphological analysis of various fiber samples from FQA indicated that this pretreatment process could lead to fibers with a shorter length, larger width, more distinct kink and curl, as well as less fine content. By FTIR, it was found that there were no new changes in the chemical structure of PCFs and NaCFs, but the intensity decrease of some major peaks indicated that the fiber structure might have been partially destroyed. XRD results suggested that the crystallinity degree of PCFs decreased dramatically from 81.52 to 33.41 % and more cellulose II appeared, with a maximum value of 13.68 %. The changes of the structure and property of NaCFs were all much weaker when compared with PCFs. Cellulose acetate was prepared by various fiber samples. Compared with UCF, the degrees of substitution of PCAs and NaCAs were all improved, and the biggest value of PCAs was 2.88, which was 2.66 in NaCAs.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aaltonen O, Jauhiainen O (2009) The preparation of lignocellulosic aerogels from ionic liquid solutions. Carbohydr Polym 75:125–129
Alves L, Medronho BF, Antunes FE, Romano A, Miguel MG, Lindman B (2015) On the role of hydrophobic interactions in cellulose dissolution and regeneration: colloidal aggregates and molecular solutions. Colloids Surf A. doi:10.1016/j.colsurfa.2015.03.011 (in press)
Cai J, Zhang L (2005) Rapid dissolution of cellulose in LiOH/urea and NaOH/urea aqueous solutions. Macromol Biosci 5:539–548
Cai J, Zhang L (2006) Unique gelation behavior of cellulose in NaOH/urea aqueous solution. Biomacromolecules 7:183–189
Cai J, Zhang L, Zhou J, Li H, Chen H, Jin H (2004) Novel fibers prepared from cellulose in NaOH/urea aqueous solution. Macromol Rapid Commun 25:1558–1562
Cai J, Zhang L, Zhou J, Qi H, Chen H, Kondo T, Chen X, Chu B (2007) Multifilament fibers based on dissolution of cellulose in NaOH/urea aqueous solution: structure and properties. Adv Mater 19:821–825
Chen XM, Burger C, Wan F, Zhang J et al (2007) Structure study of cellulose fibers wet-spun from environmentally friendly NaOH/urea aqueous solutions. Biomacromolecules 8:1918–1926
Chen WS, Yu HP, Liu YX, Chen P, Zhang MX, Hai YF (2011) Individualization of cellulose nanofibers from wood using high-intensity ultrasonication combined with chemical pretreatments. Carbohydr Polym 83:1804–1811
Chen X, Chen JH, You TT, Wang K, Xu F (2015) Effects of polymorphs on dissolution of cellulose in NaOH/urea aqueous solution. Carbohydr Polym 125:85–91
Dadi AP, Varanasi S, Schall CA (2006) Enhancement of cellulose saccharification kinetics using an ionic liquid pretreatment step. Biotechnol Bioeng 95:904–910
Dong FX, Liu W, Liu HF, Chen XF (2012) Preparation of cellulose nanocrystal from cotton pulp with different pretreatments. China Pulp Pap 12:1–5
Duchemin BJC, Staiger MP, Ticker N, Newman RH (2010) Aerocellulose based on all-cellulose composites. J Appl Polym Sci 115:216–221
Fink HP, Weigel P, Purz HJ, Ganster J (2001) Structure formation of regenerated cellulose materials from NMMO-solutions. Prog Polym Sci 26:1473–1524
Gupta PK, Uniyal V, Naithani S (2013) Polymorphic transformation of cellulose I to cellulose II by alkali pretreatment and urea as an additive. Carbohydr Polym 94:843–849
Innerlohinger J, Weber HK, Kraft G (2006) Aerocellulose: aerogels and aerogel-like materials made from cellulose. Macromol Symp 244:126–130
Jin HJ, Zha CX, Gu LX (2007) Direct dissolution of cellulose in NaOH/thiourea/urea aqueous solution. Carbohydr Res 342:851–858
Kaplan DL (ed) (1998) Biopolymers from renewable resources. Spinger, Berlin, p 55
Klemm D, Philipp B, Heinze T et al (2004) General considerations on structure and reactivity of cellulose: section 2.1–2.1.4. Compr Cellul Chem 1:9–29
Kuo CH, Lee CK (2009) Enhanced enzymatic hydrolysis of sugarcane bagasse by N-methylmorpholine-N-oxide pretreatment. Bioresour Technol 100:866–871
Lu P, Hsieh YL (2010) Preparation and properties of cellulose nanocrystals: rods, spheres, and network. Carbohydr Polym 82:329–336
Nelson ML, O’Connor RT (1964) Relation of certain infrared bands to cellulose crystallinity and crystal lattice type: part II: a new infrared ratio for estimation of crystallinity in celluloses I and II. J Appl Polym Sci 8:1325–1341
Nuzhat H, Gu ZY (1990) Overview of cotton fiber structure. China Fiber Insp 11:24–28
Philipp B (1993) Organic solvents for cellulose as a biodegradable polymer and their applicability for cellulose spinning and derivatization. J Macromol Sci A 30:703–714
Poletto M, Pistor V, Santana RMC, Zattera AJ (2012) Materials produced from plant biomass. Part II: evaluation of crystallinity and degradation kinetics of cellulose. Mater Res 15:421–427
Qi H, Chang C, Zhang L (2008) Effects of temperature and molecular weight on dissolution of cellulose in NaOH/urea aqueous solution. Cellulose 15:779–787
Röder T, Morgenstern B, Schelosky N, Glatter O (2001) Solutions of cellulose in N, N-dimethylacetamide/lithium chloride studied by light scattering methods. Polymer 42:6765–6773
Rosenau T, Potthast A, Sixta H, Kosma P (2001) The chemistry of side reactions and byproduct formation in the system NMMO/cellulose (Lyocell process). Prog Polym Sci 26:1763–1837
Samios E, Dart RK, Dawkins JV (1997) Preparation, characterization and biodegradation studies on cellulose acetates with varying degrees of substitution. Polymer 38:3045–3054
Sescousse R, Budtova T (2009) Influence of processing parameters on regeneration kinetics and morphology of porous cellulose from cellulose–NaOH–water solutions. Cellulose 16:417–426
Siroky J, Blackburn RS, Bechtold T, Taylor J, White P (2010) Attenuated total reflectance Fourier-transform Infrared spectroscopy analysis of crystallinity changes in Lyocell following continuous treatment with sodium hydroxide. Cellulose 17:103–115
Testova L, Nieminen K, Penttilä PA, Serimaa R, Potthast A, Sixta H (2014) Cellulose degradation in alkaline media upon acidic pretreatment and stabilisation. Carbohydr Polym 100:185–194
Wang Y (2008) Cellulose fiber dissolution in sodium hydroxide solution at low temperature: dissolution kinetics and solubility improvement. Dissertation, Georgia Institute of Technology
Wang Y, Zhao YL, Deng YL (2008) Enhanced enzymatic hydrolysis of spruce by alkaline pretreatment at low temperature. Biotechnol Bioeng 99:1320–1328
Wei S, Kumar V, Banker GS (1996) Phosphoric acid mediated depolymerization and decrystallization of cellulose: preparation of low crystallinity cellulose—a new pharmaceutical excipient. Int J Pharm 142:175–181
Yang G, Xiong XP, Zhang L (2002) Microporous formation of blend membranes from cellulose/konjac glucomannan in NaOH/thiourea aqueous solution. J Membr Sci 201:161–173
Zhai R, Zhou X (2014) Enhanced effect of NAOH/thiourea/urea aqueous solution on paper strength of high yield pulp. BioResources 9:2154–2166
Zhang YHP, Ding SY, Mielenz JR et al (2007) Fractionating recalcitrant lignocellulose at modest reaction conditions. Biotechnol Bioeng 97:214–223
Zhou JP, Zhang L, Deng QH, Wu XJ (2004) Synthesis and characterization of cellulose derivatives prepared in NaOH/urea aqueous solutions. J Polym Sci Polym Chem 42:5911–5920
Zugenmaier P (2001) Conformation and packing of various crystalline cellulose fibers. Prog Polym Sci 26:1341–1417
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the State Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Engineering (project no. 201508) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31370578).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wang, J., Li, Y., Wang, Z. et al. Influence of pretreatment on properties of cotton fiber in aqueous NaOH/urea solution. Cellulose 23, 2173–2183 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-016-0938-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-016-0938-6