Production of cellulose nanostructures from Chilean bamboo, Chusquea quila

Abstract

In Chile, bamboo bushes of Chusquea quila genus (or popularly known as ‘quila’) have brought economic and ecological problems for decades in the south-central part of this country. On the other hand, this plant species was studied as a raw material for the production of nanofibrillated cellulose (CNF) and nanocrystalline cellulose (CNC), presenting an opportunity for sustainable and environmentally friendly management, positioning Chile as a Latin American country at the forefront of studies with nanotechnological approaches. The methodology applied to generate these nanostructures contemplated hydrolysis with sulfuric acid and oxalic acid, in addition to an intermediate stage of microfluidization to generate nanofibrillated cellulose. The products obtained showed morphological and topographic homogeneity in the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) images. The diameter values of the particles ranged from 10 to 20 nanometers for the CNCs. Through Fourier transformed spectrophotometry (FTIR) it was found that the processes of microfluidization and acid hydrolysis did not affect the molecular shape of the nanostructures and X-ray diffraction (XRD) was important to determine crystallinity index (IC), presenting values higher than 80%.