High crystalline cellulose extracted from chickpea husk using alkali treatment

This article reports the production of high crystalline cellulose from chickpea husk, for the first time. The work was carried out with an objective to utilize agricultural by-product for obtaining cellulose. Chickpea being a major legume of India, its husk was studied for cellulose extraction. The alkali treatment process for production of cellulose was optimized for obtaining highest yield. The optimum process conditions were 0.84 M NaOH, 70 °C temperature, and 2 h of extraction time with a yield of 73.08%. The extracted cellulose was characterized using chemical analysis, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis. Results showed that the cellulose content of 52.33% in husk improved to 69.79% after alkali treatment. Also, the crystallinity index of chickpea husk, which was 70.1%, increased to 89.5% after the treatment in extracted cellulose. This establishes the fact that chickpea husk has a great potential as a source for high crystalline cellulose which finds its application in material science and composite making.