Author(s)

Qingyue Wang, Qiyu Chen, Hiroki Niida, Naoki Mitsumura, Takumi Endo

Department of Environmental Science and Technology, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University, Saitama City, Japan.

Microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) was pretreated by using ionic liquids (ILs)-water mixtures solvent with solid acid catalysts. Different amount of water was considerate as the main variable. The peak shift of pretreated sample was determined by FT-IR related to the water content. The XRD was applied to characterize the change in MCC crystalline structure. Thermal decomposition technique was applied to investigate the thermal stability of pretreated MCC. The result indicated that three state of samples were occurred in pretreated MCC sample which was related the amount of water in ILs mixture system. XRD result suggested that the raw sample was distorted and transformed into a less ordered intermediate structure and the smaller crystallite size in lump state sample was obtained which could lead to lower thermal stability. This study revealed the physical chemicals properties, characteristic of molecular structures in MCC using ILs-water mixtures.

Microcrystalline Cellulose; Crystallite Structure; Ionic Liquids Mixture; X-Ray Diffractometer; Pretreatment

Wang, Q. , Chen, Q. , Niida, H. , Mitsumura, N. and Endo, T. (2014) Effect of Water Content on Crystalline Structure of Ionic Liquids Mixture Pretreated Microcrystalline Cellulose (MCC). Materials Sciences and Applications, 5, 183-192. doi: 10.4236/msa.2014.54023.