Improving dispersion stability of hydrochloric acid hydrolyzed cellulose nano-crystals

Zhen Shang; Xingye An; Frederikus Tunjung Seta; Mingshuai Ma; Mengxia Shen; Lin Dai; Hongbin Liu; Yonghao Ni

doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2019.115037

Improving dispersion stability of hydrochloric acid hydrolyzed cellulose nano-crystals

Carbohydr Polym. 2019 Oct 15:222:115037. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2019.115037. Epub 2019 Jun 28.

Authors

Zhen Shang¹, Xingye An², Frederikus Tunjung Seta², Mingshuai Ma¹, Mengxia Shen³, Lin Dai¹, Hongbin Liu⁴, Yonghao Ni⁵

Affiliations

¹ Tianjin Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, No. 29, 13th Street, TEDA, Tianjin 300457, PR China; Department of Chemical Engineering, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB E3B 5A3, Canada.
² Tianjin Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, No. 29, 13th Street, TEDA, Tianjin 300457, PR China.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB E3B 5A3, Canada.
⁴ Tianjin Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, No. 29, 13th Street, TEDA, Tianjin 300457, PR China. Electronic address: hongbin@tust.edu.cn.
⁵ Tianjin Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, No. 29, 13th Street, TEDA, Tianjin 300457, PR China; Department of Chemical Engineering, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB E3B 5A3, Canada. Electronic address: yonghao@unb.ca.

PMID: 31320063
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2019.115037

Abstract

Cellulose nano-crystals (CNC) have attracted great interests as a novel nanostructured material in recent years, thanks to their excellent mechanical properties, high surface area and lightweight and biocompatibility etc. Due to its low charged group content, CNC prepared from the hydrochloric acid hydrolysis has poor dispersibility in water, which hinders its further applications. In this work, well-dispersed cellulose nano-crystals are successfully prepared using a two-step method, consisting of hydrochloric acid hydrolysis, followed by adsorption of hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) onto CNC. Results show that CTAB at a low concentration (0.13-0.47 mM) provides effective steric barriers to minimize the CNC aggregation, which is supported by TEM images and particle size distribution of CNC. At high CTAB concentrations (>0.5 mM), CNC aggregation occurs, which is due to the "bridging" effect of CTAB.

Keywords: Cellulose nano-crystals (CNC); Colloidal stability; Dispersibility; Hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB); Hydrochloric acid (HCl) hydrolysis.