Coconut Coir Fibre Analysis

Result and Discussion

Chemical analysis of coconut coir fibre

The chemical composition and moisture content of the coir fibre were demonstrated by different processing stages according to the ASTM standards. The content of the raw coconut coir fibre was present in cellulose (~40 %), Lignin (~45 %) and other components of wax and pectin7. From the alkali hydrolysis, the lignin content was completely dissolved out and increasing the content of the cellulose. The fine cellulose structure is mainly composed to crystalline and amorphous regions. The amorphous region of lignin and hemicellulose is the gradually decrease from coir fibre28. The impurities of the coir fibre is removed by alkali hydrolysis and improving the surface crystallinity of the

Fig. 5 shows the thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning colorimetric (DSC) curves of synthesized CMCs. The thermal degradation (Tg) studies takes place in three steps of obtained CMCs/CNCs. In this present study, degradation of CMCs/CNCs shows the several stages, indicates the different cellulose components (lignin, hemicellulose, pectin, wax, etc.) degradate at different temperature7. Thermal degradation of CMCs possess an initial weight loss in the region of 30-160 °C is mainly due to the removal of loosely bound water (moisture) on the surface of cellulose4,22,30,38,45. CMCs depict the major degradation takes place in two-steps. First weight loss occurs between temperature around at 180-250 °C with 7.5 wt.% loss is ascribed to the depolymerization of hemicellulose, pectin and cleavage of glycosidic linkages of the samples46. The major weight loss occurs at increasing the temperature of 270-430 °C with 88 wt.% loss is due to the degradation of lignin and cellulose. Jonoobi et al., (2011) reported that the cellulosic materials are degrading at low to moderate temperature47. Earlier, degradation of hemicellulose starts bellow 400 °C followed by pyrolysis of lignin and depolymerization of cellulose. The remaining cellulose material degrades after heating of 550 °C is attributed to the presence of carbonaceous materials in coconut coir fibre in N2

Krishnan & Ramesh.,(2013) reported that the CNCs from coconut coir fibre with the average width is 5-30 nm and length is 120-300 nm with an aspect ratio is 11.8 nm13. Haafiz et al., (2013) reported that the high aspect ratio can play an important role in increase the path length of the CNCs30. Needle-like CNCs from coir with average thickness is 7.5 nm. These results are highly comparable to other reported works. CNCs were prepared from various materials with average thickness of cotton is 7.3 nm52, wood is 4.3 nm53, rice straw is 4.4 nm29 and tunicate is 8.4