Extraction and characterization of celluloses from various plant byproducts

Tesfaye Gabriel; Anteneh Belete; Frank Syrowatka; Reinhard H H Neubert; Tsige Gebre-Mariam

doi:10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2020.04.264

Extraction and characterization of celluloses from various plant byproducts

Int J Biol Macromol. 2020 May 8:S0141-8130(20)33136-6. doi: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2020.04.264. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Tesfaye Gabriel¹, Anteneh Belete², Frank Syrowatka³, Reinhard H H Neubert⁴, Tsige Gebre-Mariam⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pharmaceutics and Social Pharmacy, School of Pharmacy, College of Health Sciences, Addis Ababa University, P. O. Box 1176, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Electronic address: tesfaye.gabriel@aau.edu.et.
² Department of Pharmaceutics and Social Pharmacy, School of Pharmacy, College of Health Sciences, Addis Ababa University, P. O. Box 1176, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Electronic address: anteneh.belete@aau.edu.et.
³ Interdisciplinary Centre of Materials Science, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 06120 Halle (Saale), Germany. Electronic address: frank.syrowatka@cmat.uni-halle.de.
⁴ Department of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics, Institute of Pharmacy, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 06120 Halle (Saale), Germany; Institute of Applied Dermatopharmacy, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 06120 Halle (Saale), Germany.. Electronic address: reinhard.neubert@pharmazie.uni-halle.de.
⁵ Department of Pharmaceutics and Social Pharmacy, School of Pharmacy, College of Health Sciences, Addis Ababa University, P. O. Box 1176, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Electronic address: tsige.gmariam@aau.edu.et.

PMID: 32437811
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2020.04.264

Abstract

Celluloses were extracted from teff straw (TS), enset fiber (EF), sugarcane bagasse (SB) and coffee hull (CH) agro-industrial byproducts generated in large quantities in Ethiopia. The present study aimed to explore these plant byproducts as alternative sources of cellulose for potential industrial applications, using various eco-friendly chlorine-free treatment conditions to obtain an optimum cellulose extraction condition. The byproducts and the as-extracted celluloses were analyzed for chemical compositions, yield, chemical functionality, crystallinity, thermal stability and morphology. EF yielded the highest cellulose content (60.0%), whereas CH the least (35.5%). FTIR spectra and ESEM morphological studies of the celluloses indicated progressive removal of non-cellulosic constituents. XRD analyses showed EF cellulose had the highest crystallinity index (CrI) (85.56%), crystallite size (5.52 nm), and proportion of crystallite interior chains of 200 plane (0.629), exhibiting unique physicochemical properties. The byproducts and the as-extracted celluloses showed Cellulose I_β crystal lattice, while celluloses from EF and SB also displayed (partial) polymorphic transition into Cellulose II. TGA studies revealed enhanced stability of the as-extracted celluloses. On the basis of the physicochemical characteristics of the celluloses, all the byproducts studied could be considered as alternative sources of cellulose for potential value-added industrial applications.

Keywords: Cellulose; Chlorine-free extraction; Plant byproducts.