Open Access

ARTICLE

Sustainable Materials Based on Cellulose from Food Sector Agro-Wastes

T. Côto¹, I. Moura¹, A. de Sá^1,*, C. Vilarinho², A. V. Machado¹

1 Institute of Polymers and Composites (IPC) and Institute of Nanostructures, Nanomodelling and Nanofabrication (i3N) , University of Minho, Campus de Azurém, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal
2 Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Minho, Campus de Azurém, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal

*Corresponding author:

Journal of Renewable Materials 2018, 6(7), 688-696. https://doi.org/10.32604/JRM.2018.00006

Abstract

Biopolymers exhibit unique properties and can be produced from plants’ and crops’ wastes. Cellulose has been used for the production of sustainable materials, nevertheless due to the difficulty inherent to its extraction, several methods have been studied in order to optimize the process. Therefore, this paper reports the extraction of natural polymers from food sector agro-food wastes, including cellulose, following a green chemistry aproach. The cellulose extracted from pumpkin peel was acetylated and dispersed in a polylactic acid (PLA) matrix. The developed materials were characterized in terms of their structure, morphology and thermal stability. The results demonstrated the efficient chemical modification of cellulose and confirmed its good dispersion within the PLA matrix.

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Citations