A facile and eco-friendly method to extract Apocynum venetum fibers using microwave-assisted ultrasonic degumming

•With the microwave-assisted ultrasonic treatment, the degumming process was more eco-friendly and efficient.•All properties were better than those of the fibers from traditionally degumming process.•The new method helped improve the technology for rapid and clean preparation of new biomass fibers. Apocynum venetum (AV) is a promising textile resource but lacks efficient degumming method. This study proposed a novel degumming process which coupled microwave pretreatment with ultrasonic degumming on AV bast. The traditional chemical degumming was also carried out for comparison. The raw AV bast and produced fibers were characterized with wet chemistry analyses, SEM, FTIR and GPC. Compared with traditionally degummed product, the AV fibers prepared by microwave-assisted ultrasonic degumming showed a better breaking tenacity (7.67 cN/dtex, comparing to 6.90 cN/dtex with the traditional method) and superior average length (32.5 mm, comparing to 23.0 mm). Moreover, compared with the traditional degumming method, the processing time of the new method was reduced to 31.2 %, and the chemical usage was reduced to 44.8 %. The new degumming method could efficiently produce higher quality AV fibers with less pollution.