Banca de DEFESA: FLÁVIA GLAUCE SILVA DE ALBUQUERQUE

USE OF COTTON WASTE FROM THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY FOR SYNTHESIS OF CELLULOSE HYDROGEL

Cellulose, Cellulose residue, Hydrogels, Cotton, Synthesis.

Brazil is one of the largest cotton exporters in the world and one of the largest producers of 100% cotton textile products such as fibers, yarns, flat and knitted fabrics. The process of transforming these products involves a production chain made up of several links that generates major impacts on the environment. One of these negative impacts is the generation of textile waste produced throughout this process. These discarded waste are rich in cellulose, which is one of nature's most abundant natural polymers with important properties such as great absorption power, mechanical resistance, insolubility in water, elasticity and biodegradability. This absorption capacity is an important and essential characteristic for the development and manufacture of a biomaterial widely used today, the hydrogel. The hydrogel is a 3D polymeric network and its main characteristic is its great water absorption capacity, which is why it is widely used in biomedicine, agriculture and biotechnology for the release of drugs and tissue engineering. However, its manufacture today is mostly from synthetic materials, derived from petroleum or pure cellulose supplied by large chemical laboratories. Therefore, the objective of this work is to produce the hydrogel using the cellulose obtained from the elimination of cotton from the processing stage in the final finishing process using the sanding machine. To provide the hydrogel, the dispersion was initially distributed in proportions of NaOH/Urea with controlled temperature and time. This sample was then cross-linked with epichlorohydrin. This crosslinker was used because it is only released for dermatological purposes. The solution passed resulting from the post-treatment process by freezing and thawing to obtain the hydrogel. The material obtained was characterized in terms of its microstructure by FTIR, XRD, TGA, DSC and SEM-FEG as well as by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The result achieved proves that the process of obtaining the hydrogel depends on the amount of cellulose, post-treatment and concentration of the crosslinking agent. It is therefore concluded that the use of cellulose exclusion from the textile industry has potential application in obtaining cellulose hydrogens.