Quantitative and qualitative characterization of dual scale mechanical enhancement on cellulosic and crystalline-structural variation of NaOH treated wheat straw.

In order to explore the effects of different mechanical fragmentation on cellulose separation and cellulose polymorphic transformation of wheat straw during alkali treatment, one coarse milled (CM) and two ball milled wheat straw samples (BM30 and BM120) were treated with different NaOH concentrations (1%-10%), and the lignocellulosic compositions and crystalline-structural various were quantitative and qualitative characterized. The quantitative equations between cellulose content and NaOH concentration of different mechanical treated samples were Y = 69.8-35.1exp(-0.64X)), Y = 71.3-35.1exp(-0.86X)) and Y = 73.5-35.1exp(-1.82X)). The enhancement effect of cellulose separation with the increasing mechanical fragmentation intensity is mainly due to the increasing hemicellulose solubilization. X-ray diffraction results reveals that the NaOH concentration required for cellulose crystalline transformation of CM, BM30 and BM120 is 10%, 8% and 2%, respectively. In conclusion, mechanical fragmentation contributes to cellulose separation and cellulose crystalline transformation under lower NaOH concentration.