TY  - EJOU
AU  - Côto, T.  
AU  - Moura, I.  
AU  - Sá, A. de  
AU  - Vilarinho, C.  
AU  - Machado, A. V.  

TI  - Sustainable Materials Based on Cellulose from Food Sector Agro-Wastes
T2  - Journal of Renewable Materials

PY  - 2018
VL  - 6
IS  - 7
SN  - 2164-6341

AB  - 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.
KW  - Food sector agro-wastes
KW  -  cellulose
KW  -  ionic liquid
KW  -  acetylation
KW  -  polylactic acid
KW  -  bioplastics

DO  - 10.32604/JRM.2018.00006