Carboxymethyl cellulose production from sugarcane bagasse with steam explosion pulping: Experimental, modeling, and optimization

The sugarcane bagasse was used for producing carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and obtaining high-molecular-mass hemicellulose as co-product. To this end, the steam explosion process was employed. It was found that the optimum operating conditions are the temperature of 187.15 °C, NaOH/bagasse ratio of 39% (w/w), and retention time (RT) of 10 min. Next, the obtained cellulose in the optimized condition was extracted and purified, and it was subsequently converted to CMC according to Williamson etherification technique. This paper also employed response surface methodology (RSM) to model effective factors against a degree of substitution (DS). Based on it, the optimum values of independent variables are the NaOH concentration of 28.4%, MCA mass of 1.14gram, temperature of 57.85 °C, and reaction time of 4.01 h which the CMC had the DS of 1.085, the yield of 181.302%, purity of 71.6%, and crystallinity of 30.1% with low viscosity. Samples comparatively studied by FT-IR, TGA and XRD.