Hemicellulose Films from Curaua Fibers (): Extraction and Thermal and Mechanical Characterization.

With growing environmental concerns over synthetic polymers, natural polymeric materials, such as hemicellulose, are considered a good sustainable alternative. Curaua fibers could be an excellent source of biopolymer as they have a relatively high hemicellulose content (15 wt%) and only a small amount of lignin (7 wt%). In this work, hemicellulose was extracted by an alkaline medium using KOH and the influence of the alkali concentration, temperature, and time was studied.

Influence of Epoxidized Canola Oil (eCO) and Cellulose Nanocrystals (CNCs) on the Mechanical and Thermal Properties of Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB)-Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) Blends.

Two major obstacles to utilizing polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB)-a biodegradable and biocompatible polymer-in commercial applications are its low tensile yield strength (<10 MPa) and elongation at break (~5%). In this work, we investigated the modification of the mechanical properties of PHB through the use of a variety of bio-derived additives. Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) and sugarcane-sourced cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) were proposed as mechanical reinforcing elements, and epoxidized canola oil (eCO) was utilized as a green plasticizer.

Environmental and technical feasibility of cellulose nanocrystal manufacturing from sugarcane bagasse.

The environmental and technical feasibility of cellulose nanocrystal production from sugarcane bagasse fibers was evaluated. First, the life cycle assessment (LCA) is presented as a methodology to investigate the most feasible form of obtainment. The environmental impacts regarding climate change and water footprint were evaluated considering a gate-to-gate process and a functional unit of 1kg.

Integrated processes for use of pulps and lignins obtained from sugarcane bagasse and straw: a review of recent efforts in Brazil.

Sugarcane bagasse and straw can be converted into pulps, oils, controlled-release formulations, chelating agents, and composites. This article reviews bagasse and straw conversion efforts in Brazil. Laboratory-scale processes were developed aiming at the integral use of these biomass byprod ucts.