Ultrasonic enhance acid hydrolysis selectivity of cellulose with HCl-FeCl3 as catalyst.

The effect of ultrasonic pretreatment coupled with HCl-FeCl3 catalyst was evaluated to hydrolyze cellulose amorphous regions. The ultrasonic pretreatment leads to cavitation that affects the morphology and microstructure of fibers, enhancing the accessibility of chemical reagent to the loosened amorphous regions of cellulose. In this work, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was used to identify characteristic absorption bands of the constituents and the crystallinity was evaluated by the X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique. The results indicated that appropriate ultrasonic pretreatment assisted with FeCl3 can enhance the acid hydrolysis of amorphous regions of cellulose, thus improving the crystallinity of the remaining hydrocellulose. It was observed that sonication samples that were pretreated for 300 W and 20 min followed by acid hydrolysis had maximum of 78.9% crystallinity. The crystallinity was 9.2% higher than samples that were not subjected to ultrasound. In addition, the average fines length decreased from 49 μm to 37 μm.