Thermoplastic Starch Biocomposite Films Reinforced with Nanocellulose from Weber var. Azul Bagasse.

In this work, cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs), bleached cellulose nanofibers (bCNFs), and unbleached cellulose nanofibers (ubCNFs) isolated by acid hydrolysis from Weber var. Azul bagasse, an agro-waste from the tequila industry, were used as reinforcements in a thermoplastic starch matrix to obtain environmentally friendly materials that can substitute contaminant polymers. A robust characterization of starting materials and biocomposites was carried out.

The Use of Recycled PET for the Synthesis of New Mechanically Improved PVP Composite Nanofibers.

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste has become a major challenge for the conservation of the environment due to difficult degradation. For this reason, it is important to develop new recycling strategies for reusing this waste. In this work, the electrospinning technique was used to synthesize composite nanofibers of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), recycling PET (RPET) that was obtained from the chemical recycling of postconsumer PET with glycolysis and styrene (ST) as a crosslinking agent.

Optimization of the Obtaining of Cellulose Nanocrystals from Weber Var. Azul Bagasse by Acid Hydrolysis.

A multilevel factorial design of 2 with 12 experiments was developed for the preparation of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) from Weber var. Azul bagasse, an agro-industrial waste from tequila production. The studied parameters were acid type (HSO and HCl), acid concentration (60 and 65 wt% for HSO, 2 and 8N for HCl) temperature (40 and 60 °C for HSO, 50 and 90 °C for HCl), and hydrolysis time (40, 55 and 70 min for HSO; and 30, 115 and 200 min for HCl).