Preliminary study of formation of films from cellulose-enriched agricultural by-products

摘要

Two agricultural by-products, sugar-beet pulp and wheat bran, have been examined for their suitability to be transformed into bioplastics by esterification by lauroyl chloride. Influence of cellulose content was studied on eleven samples enriched in cellulose after chemical or enzymatic removal of pectins from sugar-beet pulp and heteroxylans from wheat bran. After a pretreatment by immersion in 0.5 mol/L sulfuric acid, esterification was carried out with lauroyl chloride. Neither the amount of cellulose nor the extraction treatment had a marked influence on the formation of plastic. A film could be obtained from all the wheat-bran samples, including samples with low cellulose content, but only from one sugar-beet pulp sample. The crystallinity of the cellulose in sugar-beet pulp and wheat bran were different. The nature of cellulose could be responsible for the failure of sugar-beet pulp residues to form plastic. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [References: 24]