Synthesis of cellulose acetate and carboxymethylcellulose from sugarcane straw

•Synthesis of cellulose derivatives from sugarcane straw.•High removal of lignin and hemicellulose.•Low solubilization of cellulose after pretreatments.•High effectiveness in the cellulose acetate obtainment.•Production of water soluble carboxymethylcellulose. Sugarcane straw (SCS) is a raw material with high potential for production of cellulose derivatives due to its morphology and structure. The proposal of this work was to synthesize cellulose acetate (CA) and carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) from sugarcane straw cellulose, and applied the CA in the preparation of a membrane. The cellulose extraction was carried out in four steps. Firstly, SCS was treated with H2SO4 (10% v/v) followed by NaOH (5% w/v) treatment. Subsequently, a chelating process was performed before ending the extraction process with chemical bleaching using H2O2 (5% v/v). The extracted cellulose was employed in the obtainment of CA and CMC. The CA presented a degree of substitution (DS) of 2.72. Its FTIR spectrum showed that practically all hydroxyl groups were replaced by acetate groups. The membrane synthesized from CA was dense and homogeneous. The presence of small particles on the top and bottom surfaces decreased the mechanical resistance of the membrane. The CMC presented a low DS (0.4) demonstrating the carboxymethylation reaction was not very effective due to the presence of lignin. These results proved that SCS can be utilized in the synthesis of CA and CMC.