When: Friday 12th July 2019, at 12pm-1pm
Where: BioPRIA Building 59, 15 Alliance Lane, Clayton VIC 3800
Speaker: Poornima Vijay
In order to find suitable oxidants for lignocellulose to produce nanocellulose fiber and oxidised lignin, it is important to identify the oxidant which can oxidise cellulose and lignin. It can also be interpreted that the hydroxyl group in cellulose, being an aliphatic compound is less reactive as compared to an aromatic hydroxyl group in Lignin. Hence the first stage of my project is to find an environmentally benign oxidant for cellulose to prepare cellulose nanofibre. In order to synthesize Cellulose nanofiber by oxidising cellulose, it has been a normal practice to use TEMPO as mediator and hypochlorite as primary oxidant. In search of the environmentally benign oxidants which oxidise cellulose selectively and effectively, various reactions have been attempted by me. Some of the primary ones are-
- TEMPO with various transition metal salts
- TEMPO with metal salts-Coordinates.
- Radical initiators etc.
The results of these attempts have been a learning experience. It also suggested to increase the accessibility of cellulose hydroxyl group to reaction media by using suitable solvents which can dissociate some of the hydrogen bonding in cellulose. Hence the cellulose can be easily oxidisable with non-halogenated compounds.