Evaluation of mercerization treatment conditions on extracted cellulose from shea nut shell using FTIR and thermogravimetric analysis

Shea nut shell (SNS) is an agrowaste obtained from Vitellaria paradoxa tree and discarded by burning. The extraction of nanocellulose from this agrowaste is expected to be a value addition to Shea farming and processing. However, the isolation of quality nanocellulose begins with optimal pretreatment of the agrowaste material. In this work, the mercerization of SNS collected from local processing centers was carried out by varying the treatment conditions such as temperature, time, liquor ratio (LR) and concentration of the alkali solution. The resulting samples were characterized using FTIR, TGA and DTGA. From the results obtained, the minimum treatment conditions required to isolate cellulose from SNS was obtained as 100 °C for treatment temperature, 2 h for treatment time, 1:20 for LR and 20% for alkali solution concentration. The isolated cellulose was also found to be of good thermal properties when compared to cellulose from other agrowaste. However, these conditions can be varied to give desired properties for specific application.