Influence of mechanical activation on the graft copolymerization of sugarcane bagasse and acrylic acid

Sugarcane bagasse (SCB) was mechanically activated by home-made high efficiency stirring mill. Graft copolymers (SCB-g-PAA) of SCB with different mechanical activation times (t(M)) and acrylic acid (AA) have been synthesized by using ammonium persulfate/sodium sulfite redox pair as an initiator in aqueous solution. The effect of tM on the graft co-polymerization was evaluated by grafting ratio (GR) and grafting efficiency (GE). In addition, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) were used to characterize the granular morphology, functional groups, crystal structure and thermal properties of the product. It was found that the mechanical activation could split fiber bundles and decrease significantly the crystallinity. SCB degraded after the mechanical activation (MA) and its thermal stability declined. Moreover, the graft copolymerization was enhanced obviously by MA processing. And GR and GE increased with the increase of activation time. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.