According to statistics, the global consumption of household detergents is more than 70 million tons every year. Detergents are usually discharged directly with sewage in the use process, resulting in most of them being injected into surface water and infiltrated into the soil, which not only seriously pollutes the ecosystem, but also has extremely adverse effects on aquatic organisms, animals and plants and human beings! Cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) extracted from plants are biodegradable and renewable raw materials, while corn cob is a rich and cheap source of natural cellulose. About 250 million tons of corn cob waste are produced every year in the world. Therefore, if these agricultural waste can be fully utilized, it can not only reduce the environmental burden, but also be converted into cost-effective products. Recently, Professor Ren Fazheng and Associate Professor Li Yuan from China Agricultural University developed an environmental friendly detergent based on cellulose nanospheres (CNS) from corncob. Compared with commercial detergents, the detergent prepared by the researchers shows higher cleaning efficiency in removing all kinds of surface stains, which is opposite to the high toxicity of commercial detergents. It has a high toxicity to zebras Fish and water lettuce did not show any toxicity. Researchers have successfully transformed agricultural corncob waste into a more environmentally friendly commercial synthetic detergent, making it more cost-effective and sustainable! The preparation mechanism of CNS cellulose material extracted from corn cob is usually insoluble in water, and the interfacial activity is limited, and it is very difficult to decompose the raw fiber into nano spherical cellulose. Therefore, the three steps of acid assisted steam explosion, NaOH swelling and tempo oxidation shown in Fig. 1 were successively carried out for corncob. The highly crystalline structure of cellulose was decomposed by the method of acid steam explosion; the hydrogen bond between molecules in cellulose was destroyed by NaOH swelling treatment, and the degree of polymerization and crystallinity of cellulose was further reduced; then the degree of oxidation (do) of cellulose was adjusted by controlling the amount of NaOH and reaction time, and the CNS with DOS of 50% and 100% (do50 and do100) was obtained. Figure 1. Schematic diagram of CNS preparation mechanism the cleaning ability of CNS researchers first compared the cleaning ability of do50 with commercial dishwashing liquid (DWL) and washing powder (LP) for oil and other stains, and the results showed that do50 has higher cleaning effect, and can effectively remove sunflower seed oil, tomato sauce and ink on polyester, silk and cotton fabrics, with better effect than commercial DWL, and D O50 also shows high whiteness, which can effectively prevent stains from adhering to the fabric again. Fig. 2. The cleaning ability test of CNS for stains. In addition, do50 can also remove the pepper oil stains on stainless steel, plastic, ceramics and glass plates. It can be seen from Fig. 3 that compared with the commercial detergent, CNS can not only effectively remove the oil stains on various surfaces, but also does not need any additives, showing excellent cleaning ability. Figure 3. Test of CNS's ability to clean stains. Toxicity test of CNS. One of the hazards of household detergents to ecosystems is that they are highly toxic. Therefore, researchers tested the toxicity of CNS through zebrafish. The results are shown in Figure 4. The median lethal rates of do50, LP and DWL to zebrafish are 9.007, 0.171 and 0.053mg 1-1, which indicates that DWL and LP are highly toxic to zebrafish, while CNS has no toxicity to zebrafish due to its cellulose similar to the composition of aquatic plants in the diet of zebrafish. Figure 4. Toxicity test of CNS to zebrafish in real life, water containing residual detergent is often used for agricultural irrigation, so researchers tested the toxicity of CNS to aquatic plants through Hydroponic Lettuce experiment. The results are as shown in Figure 5, do50 did not affect the normal growth of plants, and the roots and leaves of plants grew vigorously, while the leaves of LP and DWL groups withered quickly and the roots browning. This shows that the CNS prepared by the researchers also shows excellent biocompatibility and low toxicity to plants. Fig. 5. Toxicity test of CNS to Hydroponic Lettuce in this paper, the researchers successfully transformed corncob, a kind of agricultural waste, into a non-toxic and biodegradable environmental friendly detergent. Compared with the commercial detergent, the detergent prepared by the researchers has higher cleaning ability and negligible toxicity, and has the potential to replace the traditional detergent. We believe that this technology will provide a new direction for the sustainable development of the global detergent industry, and is expected to promote the global transition to a healthier and more sustainable society! Original link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-0501-1 advanced polymer science established "cellulose" and other communication groups, added small editors as friends (micro signal: polymer Xiang, please note: name unit Title Research direction), invited to join the group.
Source: polymer science frontier
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