Textile waste as precursors in nanocrystalline cellulose synthesis

High solid waste generation is one of the biggest environmental issues today. The rapid cycle of fashion in the textile industry has contributed intensely to the extremely high levels of material consumption and waste generation. This paper presents a proposal for obtaining cellulose nanocrystals from recovered textile waste. For this, cotton cloth waste and cotton and polyester fabric blend waste were used. Spherical cellulose nanocrystals were obtained from the milling of fabrics in liquid medium and oxidative treatment. The results obtained by transmission electron microscopy, zeta potential, X-ray diffraction and thermogravimetry showed that both fabric samples promoted the formation of spherical cellulose nanocrystals with high crystallinity index. The oxidative treatment promoted the increase of the crystallinity percentage of the samples, as well as the decrease of the crystallite size. With this, the potential of the textile industry waste to obtain cellulose nanocrystals becomes evident. Graphic abstract