Potential application of medical cotton waste for self-reinforced composite.

The present work mainly deals with the efficacy of the waste medical grade cotton (MGC) used for the sustainable self-reinforced composite (SRC). MGC waste was exposed in the autoclave for destroying all microorganisms including infected bacteria's and virus followed by scoured and bleached for removing blood stains and foreign materials. SRC film was prepared by selective dissolved fibre surface of waste MGC into a dissolved microcrystalline cellulose (DMCC) matrix solution prepared by lithium chloride/N,N-dimethylacetamide (LiCl/DMAc) solvent system. The tensile strength of SRC films was significantly improved up to 252 MPa, and it was higher than that of the DMCC film. In the FTIR study, no peak was found in 1620 cm-1 in SRC confirming that the LiCl/DMAc has been completely removed. SEM study also revealed the presence of partial dissolution of the surface of MGC which merged with DMCC matrix in the SRC. The XRD results displayed higher crystallinity SRC than DMCC film. The thermal stability of SRC as determined by TGA improved compared to the DMCC film from 225 °C for DMCC to 250-283 °C for SRC films. Therefore, these prominent results revealed the potential utilization of a sustainable resource, waste MGC in producing environmentally friendly SRC films with high-performance properties.