Lixia Gao¹, Sheng Shi^1,2,*, Wensheng Hou¹, Shuhua Wang¹, Zhifeng Yan¹, Chao Ge¹

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.8, No.6, pp. 703-713, 2020, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2020.09055

Abstract In this study, waste cotton fabric was used as cellulose raw material and pretreated in aqueous NaOH/urea solution system to investigate the effect of NaOH/urea pretreatment solution on the hydrolysis of cotton fiber. The cotton fiber was pretreated with different conditions of aqueous NaOH/urea solution, and the pretreated cotton fiber was hydrolyzed under the same conditions as the original cotton fiber. The results of characterization analysis showed that water retention value of pretreated cotton fiber was higher than that of unpretreated sample. Moreover, the cotton fiber presented both a convoluted structure and a coarser surface, XRD results suggested that the… More >

Yongfang Zhang^1,2, Wensheng Hou¹, Hong Guo¹, Sheng Shi¹, Jinming Dai^1,2,*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.7, No.12, pp. 1309-1319, 2019, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2019.07884

Abstract Carbon microspheres were prepared from waste cotton fibers by hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) with the addition of copper sulphate in this work. The important influence factors, temperature, concentration of copper sulphate, resident time were explored here. The smooth and regular carbon microspheres could be formed at 330°C with 0.15 wt% copper sulphate after 6 h from waste cotton fibers. The crystal structures of cotton fibers were destructed in a short resident time with 0.15 wt% copper sulphate from SEM images and XRD patterns of solid products. This strategy provides a new, mild and efficient method to prepare carbon microspheres from waste… More >