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Impact of Ball-Milling Pretreatment on Pyrolysis Behavior and Kinetics of Crystalline Cellulose

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Abstract

Effect of ball-milling pretreatment on pyrolysis characteristics of cellulose was studied by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) at four different heating rates; 5, 10, 20, and 40 K/min. Variation in the thermal stability and activation energy of cellulose with ball-milling were calculated by TGA Kinetics using Kissinger, Kissinger–Akahira–Sunose, Flynn–Wall–Ozawa and Starink model free methods. Results demonstrated that ball-milling reduced the thermal stability and activation energy of cellulose. The original and ball-milled cellulose were thoroughly characterized by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and Scanning electron microscopy. X-ray diffraction analysis revealed that ball-milling decreased the crystallinity of cellulose from 93 to 51 %. The results suggested that ball-milling pretreatment led to effective disruption of crystalline cellulose to amorphous cellulose. It is, therefore, concluded that the ball-milled cellulose can easily become a useful source of chemicals and energy than crystalline cellulose.

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Abbreviations

TGA:

Thermogravimetric analysis

KAS:

Kissinger–Akahira–Sunose

FTIR:

Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy

XRD:

X-ray diffraction

NMR:

Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

CV:

Calorific values

CC:

Crystalline cellulose

BMC:

Ball-milled cellulose

β :

Heating rates

T max :

Temperature of the peak

Ea :

Activation energy

cm−1 :

Wavenumber

CI:

Crystallinity index

α:

Conversion factor

n :

Reaction order

A :

Pre-exponential factor

R:

Ideal gas constant

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia for funding the research work under Exploration Research Grant Scheme (ERGS:0153AB-108) and Centre of Research in Ionic Liquid (CORIL), all the research officers and postgraduate students for helping in all aspects.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre of Research in Ionic Liquid, Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 31750, Tronoh, Malaysia

    Amir Sada Khan, Zakaria Man, Mohammad Azmi Bustam, Muhammad Irfan Khan & Zahoor Ullah

  2. Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology, Bannu, 28100, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

    Amir Sada Khan

  3. Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Biomedical Materials, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Lahore, Pakistan

    Nawshad Muhammad

  4. Fundamental and Applied Science Department, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP), 31750, Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia

    Chong Fai Kait & Asma Nasrullah

  5. Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Pervaiz Ahmad

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  1. Amir Sada Khan
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Khan, A.S., Man, Z., Bustam, M.A. et al. Impact of Ball-Milling Pretreatment on Pyrolysis Behavior and Kinetics of Crystalline Cellulose. Waste Biomass Valor 7, 571–581 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-015-9460-6

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