Electrospinning of extracted cellulose from rice straw: A morphological aspect

Cellulose is a naturally occurring polymer of particular interest due to its abundant availability and biodegradability. These properties make cellulose fibers useful in a wide rangeof areas, such as filtration, biomedical applications, and protective clothing[1]. Rice straw represents around 45% ofthe volume in rice production, producing the largest quantity of crop residue. As rice straw is a marginal feed compared to other cereal grain straw and a problematic fuel source due tohigh ash generation, exploring more viable options to utilize rice straw is pressing, particularly as an environmentalconcern. With its compositions of cellulose (38.3%), hemicellulose (31.6%), lignin (11.8%) and silica (18.3%) , rice straw is the most available cellulose source fromagricultural crop residues in the world [2]. Electrospinning is one of the simplest and most effective methods for producing micro/nanofibers with an extremelyhigh surface area to volume ratio on a sub-cellular scale. Until now, many synthetic and natural biopolymers have beenelectrospun into ultra-thin fibers; however, electrospinning of some natural biopolymers such as cellulose due to strong inter and intramolecular bonding is a challenging area. Current study focuses on fabrication of ultrathin native nanofiber from rice straw extracted cellulose via electrospinning using acid based solvent [3].