Development of interpenetrated polymer networks from bacterial cellulose film

This study was aimed to obtain strong and lightweight material from pristine nanocellulose of bacterial cellulose (BC) which produced from Acetobacter xylinum bacterium. The nanocellulose hydrogel resulted from inter- and intrafibrillar hydrogen bonding cellulose was used as the first network. While the second network was formed by immersion of vacuum and oven dried of BC in a mixture of citric acid and glycerol in 1 to 1 molar ratio for 2, 4, 6 and 24 h followed by crosslinking initiation by heating at 130 °C for 15 h. The composite film was characterized for mechanical testing, infrared spectroscopy and microscopy analysis. The result showed that vacuum dried BC film obtained high strength compared to oven dried BC film which suggested that slow water evaporation minimize fibrils hornification and effectively facilitated the penetration of glycerol and citric acid. Infra-red spectra showed that ester linked was formed which corresponded to the formation of interpenetrated polymer network while maintaining the transparent film. Since, all materials are edible, this quite low mechanical strength composite could be applied for rigid food edible packaging material such as hard capsule.