Production of CNC from agro-waste biomass (maize shells) as a potential reinforcement in bio-nanocomposites: Extraction, modification, and characterization study
M Mohinur Rahman Rabby, Md. Mahmudur Rahman, Bijoy Chandra Ghos, M. A. Gafur, Md. Al-Amin, Syed Masudur Rahman Dewan, Md. Ashraful Alam, Md. Ismail Hossain
Abstract
• CNC has extricated from an unbeaten & beneficial source of Zea Mays shell fiber. • The CNC unveil bags of microporous holes & seizes 2D honeycomb like microstructure. • Extracted CNC have shown outstanding CrI (76.09±0.91%) & abundant active sites. • The CNC reveled high thermal stability (600 °C) while residual mass 40 %. • Which could be competent to fabricate multifunctional bionanocomposite. Cellulose nano crystal (CNC) has been considered as multifunctional biopolysaccharide due to its outstanding properties and biodegradable nature. CNC was derived from agro-waste namely maize shells by different treatment like soaping, alkali treatment, bleaching, and acid hydrolysis. Maize shells were chosen as it is considered a waste material that has no use rather burning. While burning of these releases exposes a considerable amount of environmentally airborne pollutants which are responsible for global warming. However, the properties of the extracted CNC were characterized by using FTIR-ATR, XRD,TGA,DTA,DTG, FESEM, DLS, UV–vis-NIR, and Zeta-potential analysis. The removal of hemicellulose and lignin were expelled from CNC asserted by FTIR-ATR. FESEM was used to capture microstructure and surface morphology. TGA/DTA/DTG was used for measurement of thermal stability. Phase composition, crystal structure/exact atomic position were analyzed by XRD measurement. The CNC was found more thermal stability (exposing 40 % residual mass at 600 °C), high crystallinity index (76.09±0.91 %) with good structural purity and smaller particle size around 100 nm along with negative zeta potential. Due to these outstanding properties the newly produced CNC could be beneficially used as a potential reinforcement in bionanocomposite fabrication for various uses in biomedical, industrial, and engineering sectors for the development of sustainable environment.