57. Gadhe, Jayant B.; Gupta, Ram B.; Elder, Thomas. Surface modification of lignocellulosic fibers using high-frequency ultrasound. Cellulose (
Abstract
Enzymic and chem. oxidn. of fiber surfaces has been reported in the literature as a method for producing medium d. fiberboards without using synthetic adhesives. This work focuses on modifying the surface properties of wood fibers by the generation of free radicals using high-frequency ultrasound. A sonochem. reactor operating at 610 kHz is used to sonicate the aq. suspensions of thermomech. pulp fibers (TMP). TMP is analyzed using FTIR-transmission, FTIR-ATR spectroscopy and inverse gas chromatog. (IGC). The non-conjugated carbonyl groups in TMP are represented by the peak area ratio A1736/A1511 in the FTIR-transmission spectra and by A1728/A1509 in the FTIR-ATR spectra. The increase in these ratios suggests that there is an increase in the no. of non-conjugated carbonyl groups in TMP after sonication. To further investigate, sonication of the hydrolytic lignin was also carried out and analyzed using UV, UV-ionization and FTIR-transmission spectroscopy. The changes in the surface properties of the fibers are analyzed using IGC which showed an increase in the surface free energy of fibers. The effect of operating parameters such as power of ultrasound and sonication time is also studied.
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