Preparation and Characterization of Lignocellulosic Oil Sorbent by Hydrothermal Treatment of Populus Fiber

Abstract

This study is aimed at achieving the optimum conditions of hydrothermal treatment and acetylation of <i>Populus</i> fiber to improve its oil sorption capacity (OSC) in an oil-water mixture. The characteristics of the hydrolyzed and acetylated fibers were comparatively investigated by FT-IR, CP-MAS ¹³C-NMR, SEM and TGA. The optimum conditions of the hydrothermal treatment and acetylation were obtained at170 °C for 1 h and 120 °C for 2 h, respectively. The maximum OSC of the hydrolyzed fiber (16.78 g/g) was slightly lower than that of the acetylated fiber (21.57 g/g), but they were both higher than the maximum OSC of the unmodified fiber (3.94 g/g). In addition, acetylation after hydrothermal treatment for the <i>Populus</i> fiber was unnecessary as the increment of the maximum OSC was only 3.53 g/g. The hydrolyzed and the acetylated <i>Populus</i> fibers both displayed a lumen orifice enabling a high oil entrapment. The thermal stability of the modified fibers was shown to be increased in comparison with that of the raw fiber. The hydrothermal treatment offers a new approach to prepare lignocellulosic oil sorbent.