Valorization of Parthenium hysterophorus weed for cellulose extraction and its application for bioplastic preparation

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jece.2021.105424Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Parthenium hysterophorus weed used for cellulose extraction.

  • 36.43% (wt/wt) of cellulose obtained from after optimization.

  • Extracted cellulose has high crystallinity index (CI) of 55.28.

  • The thermal stability of extracted cellulose was found to be close to 350 °C.

  • The extracted cellulose was used for the production of bioplastic film.

Abstract

Parthenium hysterophorus, the world’s one of the most dangerous weeds, was used in the present study for the extraction of cellulose. The extraction of cellulose from Parthenium hysterophorus was optimized using Plackett Burman (P-B) Design and Response Surface Methodology (RSM) involving Box-Behnken Design (BBD). The extracted cellulose was obtained with a maximum yield of 36.43% using 2.5% (wt/vol) of acid, 5.9% (wt/vol) of alkali and 2.6% (wt/vol) of chlorination treatment. The yield of the cellulose found to be 36.43% which was 74% higher than the pre-optimized value of 21%. SEM micrographs of the extracted cellulose showed cleaner surface and fibrillar morphology compared with Parthenium biomass. The functional groups of extracted cellulose were characterized by FTIR. The amorphous and crystalline nature of the extracted cellulose was determined by XRD and the Crystallinity Index was calculated as ~55.28. The thermal stability of the extracted cellulose was better than the commercial cellulose and it was stable up to the temperature close to 350 °C. The extracted cellulose was used to synthesize cellulose acetate and was used further for the preparation of bioplastic film. The prepared bioplastic was highly resistant to salt and 10% sulfuric acid, but was labile in the presence of alkali. The produced bioplastic film exhibited tensile strength of 10.8 ± 0.15 MPa, 2.86 ± 0.28% elongation at break and Young’s modulus of 153.61 ± 0.08 MPa. Therefore, Parthenium hysterophorus can be a potential source for the preparation of bioplastic and the produced bioplastic can be potentially applied in food, medicine and packaging industries.

Introduction

Parthenium hysterophorus L. (Asteraceae) is an invasive weed which was accidently introduced in India through the seeds imported along with PL 480 wheat grain [1]. It has a great ability to proliferate in favorable condition throughout the year [2]. An enormous amount of Parthenium weed is produced annually in the regions of Asia as a natural waste. It is widely distributed at road sides, waste lands, degraded soil, rock crevices and bunds. Management of this weed has become a biggest challenge for agricultural scientists. Various management methods such as mechanical, biological and chemical methods have been approached; but satisfactory solution is still yet to be explored. Hence, the problem of the eradication of this weed can be solved by its utilization for valuable products [3]. Parthenium hysterophorus contains 78% holocellulose, 15.8% pentosans and 17.2% lignin; therefore this could be a potential source for the extraction of cellulose and preparation of biodegradable material [3], [4]. The most abundant polysaccharide present on the earth is cellulose. Cellulose is a linear homopolymer of β-D-glucopyranose units having long chain joined by (1→4) glycosidic bonds [5], [6]. Cellulose is abundantly present in all plant material and has a broad range of applications over other naturally occurring polymer like proteins and starch [7]. Cellulose is used as a most popular constituent of biomass for more than 150 years due to its universal applicability [8]. Certain plants contain huge amount of cellulose [9], [10]. Together with cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin are the other major components of natural fibers present in the plants. Cellulose is semi-crystalline in nature while hemicelluloses and lignin are amorphous in nature [11].

Varshney and Naithani [4] reported the chemical functionalization of the cellulose extracted from Parthenium weed. However, the preparation of bioplastic from the extracted cellulose has not been explored. The cellulose has been extracted from various plant materials including wood fibers [12], sisal fibers [13], [14], coconut husk fiber [15], pineapple [16], banana [17], wheat straw [18], ficus leaf fiber [7], jute fiber [19], agricultural waste of onion and garlic [20], sugarcane bagasse [21], rice straw [22], empty fruit bunch [23] and dunchi fiber [24]. Marine invertebrates animals like tunicates have been reported as a source for the extraction of cellulose [25]. The extraction of cellulose from palm kernel cake using liquid phase oxidation has been also reported [26]. The extraction of cellulose from weeds like milk weed stems, Lantana camara and Eichhornia crassipes has also been reported [27], [4], [28].

The main focus of this work is the use of Parthenium weed for the extraction of cellulose, optimization of extraction using chemicals including sulfuric acid, sodium hypochlorite_1, sodium bisulphite, sodium hydroxide and sodium hypochlorite_2, where sodium hypochlorite_1 and sodium hypochlorite_2 are the first and second treatment of sodium hypochlorite respectively. The extracted cellulose was characterized and used for the production bioplastic film. The durability and resistance of the bioplastic film was assessed. This research work presents a novel report on the extraction, optimization, and characterization of cellulose from Parthenium hysterophorus and the utilization of extracted cellulose for the production of bioplastic film.

Section snippets

Materials

Herbarium specimen of Parthenium hysterophorus was collected from different regions of Indore, India. Sulfuric acid, sodium hydroxide pellets, sodium hypochlorite, sodium bisulfate, acetic acid and acetone were purchased from Hi Media Laboratories, India. Acetic anhydride was purchased from Chemydes Corporation, India. Analytical grade of all the chemicals were used.

Collection of sample and processing

Parthenium hysterophorus weed (Fig. 1A) was collected and washed several times with distilled water to remove all the dirt. After

Results and discussion

In the present study, cellulose was extracted from Parthenium biomass using alkali treatment and chlorination (Fig. 3). The cellulose extraction was statistically optimized and the extracted cellulose was further acetylated to produce cellulose acetate. Thin sheets of bioplastic film were prepared and the properties of the films were determined. The white colored fine powder form of the extracted material indicates the removal of massive fraction of the initial non-cellulosic components. The

Conclusions

In present study, cellulose was successfully extracted from Parthenium biomass and was used to prepare bioplastic film. A total of 36.43 ( ± 0.9)% (wt/wt) of cellulose was extracted after the process was optimized statistically. The morphology of extracted cellulose carried out by SEM confirmed the clean and rough surface with ridges due to the removal of large amount of hemicelluloses by chemical treatments which were strongly connected to the cellulose. The XRD pattern and FTIR results

CRediT authorship contribution statement

This work was carried out in collaboration between all authors. Shashwat Nigam carried the experimental work and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. Mukesh K. Patidar designed the study, supervised the experimental work, prepared the figures. Apurba Das designed the experimental work, managed the literature search and finally corrected the entire manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

The financial support from Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India under the scheme TARE (Grant No. TAR/2020/000399), is highly acknowledged. The authors acknowledge the facilities provided by School of Biotechnology, Devi Ahilya University, Indore. The authors thank to SIC, IIT Indore for providing necessary facility for sample analysis. The authors thank UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research, Indore for helping in Scanning

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      Intrusive plant varieties change the agitation of species composition and biodiversity, which further hinders the efficiency and fruitfulness of natural systems in invaded regions. Parthenium hysterophorus is a noxious non-woody ligneous intrusive plant of American origin that was accidentally introduced to India through the seeds transported with wheat grains (Nigam et al., 2021). P. hysterophorus is blameworthy for the deterioration of grazing lands, grasslands, outskirt areas, and wastelands and also has detrimental effects on various cropping methods, social and economic organization, and indigenous ecosystems in most of the countries (Cowie et al., 2021).

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