Chitosan-cellulose nanocomposite: Preparation, characterization, and evaluation as cationic color precipitant in sugar clarification process

Abstract

The present paper aims to use natural biodegradable polymers of chitosan (CS) and cellulose (CEL) to synthesize green chitosan-cellulose (CS-CEL) nanocomposite as a new clarifying agent. This is the cutting-edge of the sugar industry's clarification process. The CS-CEL nanocomposite showed outstanding results in zeta potential analysis, with a maximum value (+) 57.73 mV, leading to remarkableresults in coloradsorption via electrostatic attraction. It was also observed that CS-CEL has high mechanical stability. When CS and CS-CEL nanocomposite were used in the clarification of sugarcane (MJ), the findings demonstrated an improvement in colorremoval of up to 8.7% using CS and 18.1%using CS-CEL nanocomposite compared to currently phosphotation clarification process. Also, Turbidity decreased using CS-CEL nanocomposite compared to the traditional phosphotation clarification process. Overall, we can conclude that CS-CEL nanocomposite has considerable efficiency in sugarcane juice clarification process as a green biodegradable adsorbent and flocculating material to produce sulfur-free sugar.

Keywords: Biodegradable nanocomposite; Cellulose; Chitosan; Clarification; Sulfur-free sugar.