Isolation and characterization of nanocrystalline cellulose from cocoa pod husk (CPH) biomass wastes

Adebola Iyabode Akinjokun; Leslie Felicia Petrik; Aderemi Okunola Ogunfowokan; John Ajao; Tunde Victor Ojumu

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06680

Isolation and characterization of nanocrystalline cellulose from cocoa pod husk (CPH) biomass wastes

Heliyon. 2021 Apr 11;7(4):e06680. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06680. eCollection 2021 Apr.

Authors

Adebola Iyabode Akinjokun^{1

2

3}, Leslie Felicia Petrik¹, Aderemi Okunola Ogunfowokan², John Ajao², Tunde Victor Ojumu¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town, South Africa.
² Department of Chemistry, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
³ Department of Chemical Sciences, Joseph Ayo Babalola University, Ikeji-Arakeji, Nigeria.

Abstract

In this paper, cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) were isolated from the cellulose extracted from cocoa pod husk waste, followed by characterization using XRD, FT-IR, TGA, SEM and TEM to determine its crystallinity, structural properties, thermal characteristics, morphology and dimensions respectively. The result revealed that the cocoa pod husk amorphous segments containing hemicelluloses and lignin were extensively removed with increasing chemical treatments leading to increased purity, crystallinity index and thermal stability of the extracted materials. The diameter, length and crystallinity index of the CNC isolated from the CPH are 10-60 nm, 41-155 nm and 67.60% respectively.

Keywords: Cellulose; Cellulose nanocrystals; Cocoa pod; Hydrolysis; Lignin; Wastes.