An investigation of treatment parameters impact on the bacterial cellulose mechanical properties

The Bacterial cellulose pellicles have a high crystallization degree (up to70%),strong structure, high mechanical strength, low degree of polymerization, and high water absorption capacity, 0.1 to 400 times of its dry weight[1,2,3]. Bacterial cellulose (BC) produced by Gluconacetobacter xylinusis a biodegradable polymer with high crystallinity which can be used as reinforcement in bio-composites. The downstream process parameters in the BC preparation have a strong influence on their mechanical properties. Such processing parameters as the temperature of treatment and drying stages, the treatment solvent type were investigated in this study to modify the effective parameters on mechanical properties. The NaOH addition for treatment has made the tensile declined intensively, but an increase in the NaOH concentration resulted in a higher tensile modulus of the samples. Use of NaClO as a treatment solvent led to an increase of about 10-11% in the mechanical properties of the BC.