Preparation and thermostability of hydrophobic modified nanocrystalline cellulose

Abstract In this paper, we provide a new approach for the anionic modification and functional application of nanocellulose. The nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) is prepared from microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) and modified by fatty acids (lauric acid, palmitic acid and stearic acid). Ammonium ceric sulfate or hydrogen peroxide/ferrous sulfate being used as an initiator, three kinds of modified nanocrystalline cellulose (MNCC) can be synthesized at low temperature. The terminology for these MNCC is L-MNCC (NCC modified by lauric acid), P-MNCC (NCC modified by palmitic acid) and S-MNCC (NCC modified by stearic acid). Compared with those existing synthesized methods, the reaction condition is mild, and the modified products show strong stability. It can be seen from morphological structure analysis and reaction conditions analysis of MNCC that the original structure of cellulose is changed slightly. And the optimal conditions for preparing MNCC are obtained. The best yields of L-MNCC, P-MNCC and S-MNCC are 54.2 %, 20.9 % and 14.5 %, respectively.