Aparecido Junior de Menezes1,3,*, Elson Longo2, Fábio Lima Leite1, Alain Dufresne3
Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.2, No.4, pp. 306-313, 2014, DOI:10.7569/JRM.2014.634121
Abstract In the work presented in this article surface chemical modifi cation was applied to ramie cellulose nanocrystals
by grafting organic acid chlorides presenting different lengths of the aliphatic chain. The objective of this
surface chemical treatment was to enhance the nonpolar nature of the grafted nanocrystals and improve their
dispersibility in a nonpolar polymeric matrix. The occurrence of the chemical modifi cation was evaluated
by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, the degree of crystallinity by X-ray diffraction, and
the morphology by scanning electron microscopy with fi eld emission gun (FEG-SEM) and atomic force
microscopy (AFM). More >