Investigation on the recycling of sulfuric acid from pretreatment of cellulose for nanocellulose preparation

Sulfuric acid is often used to pretreat cellulose prior to homogenization and conversion to nanocellulose. It would be economically significant to reuse the acid to close the overall value chain loop. The target of this work was to investigate the effect of recovery and recycling frequency of sulfuric acid from the pretreatments on the pretreatment yield of water-insoluble cellulose solid residue, and to explore the relationship between the nanocellulose size prepared by recovery of acid and number of cycles. The surface properties of the nanocelluloses were measured, including content of sulfate groups, absolute zeta potential, crystallinity, and thermal stability.