Optimization and Characterization of Cellulose Extracted from Sugarcane Bagasse

Saad, Ahmed Ali; Ahmed, Hisham Sayed; Megally, Ismael Abdel-Nasser; Ahmed, Mahmoud; Ibraheem, Mostafa Tarek; Farouk, Sabah Mohamed; Ahmed, Hosam Mohamed; Khalaf, Eyad Sayed Abdallah

doi:10.21608/iugrc.2022.302662

Optimization and Characterization of Cellulose Extracted from Sugarcane Bagasse

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Egyptian Academy for Engineering and Advanced Technology, Egypt.

² Egyptian Academy for Engineering and Advanced Technology, Teaching Assistant

³ Abu Zaabal Company for Speciality Chemicals, Chemist.

⁴ Science & Technology Centre of Excellence, PhD Egypt.

10.21608/iugrc.2022.302662

Abstract

The surplus in the amount of agricultural wastes leftover on the Egyptian farmlands after each harvest season, along with the presidential initiative and the current strategic vision 2030 towards sustainable development, are the main challenge and strong ambition to conduct this research study. This study evaluates the extraction of sugarcane bagasse (SCB) celluloses with alkali treatment, aided by an optimization for the obtained results by using the response surface methodology (RSM) as a statistical method for modeling and analyzing a process. Seventeen experimental runs were executed to study the influence of various process variables, such as extraction time (1-4 hrs), temperature (50-90 oC) and the concentration of NaOH (2-10 %) on the response (yield) of extracted cellulose. It was estimated that the optimum operating conditions for extracting the high yield (0.5871 g of cellulose/g of bagasse) of cellulose were obtained at time of (2.4 hrs), temperature of (60 oC) and NaOH concentration of (9.8 %). It was also evident from these experiments that the suitable coefficient of determination (R2=0.8772), which is higher than 75 % showed that the quadratic polynomial model is significant and sufficient to represent the actual relationship between the response and significant variable. The extracted celluloses were characterized by Fourier transmission infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The increase in crystallinity from 31.76 percent for the raw bagasse fibres to 51.13 percent for the extracted cellulose, as observed from the XRD analysis was found to be in complete agreement with the findings of FTIR analysis.

Keywords