Open Access
ARTICLE
Characterization of Cellulose Nanocrystals Grafted with Organic Acid Chloride of Different Sizes
Aparecido Junior de Menezes1,3,*, Elson Longo2, Fábio Lima Leite1, Alain Dufresne3
1
Department of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics (DFQM), Federal University of São Carlos, 18052-780, Sorocaba, Brazil
2
Institute of Chemistry (IQ), São Paulo State University, Araraquara, Brazil
3
Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Engineering, (LGP2) Grenoble-INP PAGORA, 461 rue de la Papeterie CS10065 - 38402 Saint Martin
d’Hères Cedex, France
* Corresponding Author:
Journal of Renewable Materials 2014, 2(4), 306-313. https://doi.org/10.7569/JRM.2014.634121
Received 26 August 2014; Accepted 02 November 2014;
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). The morphology and crystallinity provided by different experimental methods were
carefully compared.
Keywords
Cite This Article
Junior, A., Longo, E., Leite, F. L., Dufresne, A. (2014). Characterization of Cellulose Nanocrystals Grafted with Organic Acid Chloride of Different Sizes.
Journal of Renewable Materials, 2(4), 306–313. https://doi.org/10.7569/JRM.2014.634121