Pineapple Biorefinery in Costa Rica

Pineapple peel’s biomass was used as a raw material for nanocellulose extraction. The raw material was a residue from the fruit industry from Costa Rica. The nanocellulose was obtained by hydrolysis of the pineapple peel residues after NaOH and hypochlorous acid with hydrochloric acid (HCl) for the microcellulose formation and with sulfuric acid (H2SO4) for nanocellulose formation. Properties were analyzed by FTIR, TGA, DLS, zeta potential, AFM and SEM. The results showed that nanocellulose with a fiber like structure was preferentially obtained after 60 min in contact with sulfuric acid.