Effects of Phosphorylation Duration on the Jute Extracted Cellulose Nanofibrils Using Ultra-sonication

The pretreatment process for the extraction of cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) has been attracting the awareness of researchers. However, toxicity, complicated multistep procedures, and the use of costly chemicals are still some problems for chemical modification of cellulose fibers during the CNFs production. In this work, the phosphorylation reaction is introduced to pretreat jute fibers to extract CNFs with tiny diameter, and then the physicochemical properties of the obtained CNFs are analyzed. Experimental results exhibit that the phosphorylation process can affect the overall defibrillation process and the structure as well as properties of the involved products. This study also reports that the phosphorylation efficiency can be influenced by the existence of water, absence of urea, high temperature, and reaction duration. Even at a low degree of substitution, the phosphorylated CNFs exhibit better thermal stability and higher residual char compared to raw jute at 700 degrees C.