Graft copolymerization of glycidyl methacrylate onto delignied kenaf

bers through pre-irradiation technique

Jamaliah Sharif
a,n
, Siti Fatahiyah Mohamad
a
, Nor Azilah Fatimah Othman
a
,
Nurul Azra Bakaruddin
a
, Hasnul Nizam Osman
a
, Olgun Gven
b
a
Radiation Processing Division, Malaysian Nuclear Agency, Kajang, Selangor 43000, Malaysia
b
Hacettepe University, Department of Chemistry, Beytepe, 06800 Ankara, Turkey
H I G H L I G H T S

We used kenaf bers for radiation induce graft copolymerization with GMA.

Kenaf bers was treated to remove lignin in order to increase grafting yield.

Treated kenaf bers were graft copolymerize through preirradiation technique.

Optimum conditions for graft copolymerization of kenaf bers were established.

Formation of graft copolymer is also conrmed with SEM, FTIR and XRD.
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 26 April 2013
Accepted 28 May 2013
Available online 6 June 2013
Keywords:
Radiation induced graft polymerization
Kenaf bers
Delignication
Glycidyl methacrylate
Pre-irradiation
a b s t r a c t
Glycidyl methacrylate grafted kenaf (GMA-g-Kenaf) was prepared by pre-irradiation grafting technique.
Kenaf bers were treated with different concentration of sodium chlorite solution before used as trunk
polymer. Treated kenaf bers were irradiated by electron beam followed by grafting reaction in GMA/water
emulsion system. The degree of grafting was determined as a function of absorbed dose, reaction time,
reaction temperature and concentration of monomer. The results showed that the lignin content was
decreased from 14.3% to as low as 3.3% with the increased of sodium chlorite concentration. This was
evidenced by SEM pictures which show the surface of treated kenaf bers was cleaner and smoother
compared to that of untreated one. The degree of grafting increased with the increase of absorbed dose,
reaction temperature, reaction time and monomer concentration as well as with decreasing lignin content.
Formation of graft copolymer was conrmed with SEM, FTIR analysis. The structural investigation by XRD
showed that degree of crystallinity of graft copolymers decreased with the increase in degree of grafting.
& 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Kenaf (Hibiscus Cannabinus L) is a herbaceous annual plant in
the Malvaceae family belonging to the division of Magnoliophyta
(Kaldor et al., 1990). Kenaf grows very quickly and can reach a
height of 4 to 5 m in 4 to 5 months therefore suitable as agrobers
resources. Kenaf bers are a lignocellulosic bers mainly consist-
ing of cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin. Noncellulosic com-
pounds such as lignin, hemicelluloses and pectins hold the
cellulose brils together. Kenaf bers have been used in pulp,
paper, textiles industries as well as reinforcement ller for poly-
mer composites (Kaldor et al., 1990; Song and Obendorf, 2006;
Aziz et al., 2005; Clemons and Sanadi, 2007). With such
abundance and renewable resources, it is an advantage to explore
new application for kenaf bers as trunk polymer for grafting
copolymerization. Grafting polymer onto kenaf surface can give
many new specic properties including adsorption capacity, acid
resistance and wetting capability (Nor Hashimah et al., 2012;
Eromosele and Bayero, 1999).
Radiation induced graft copolymer can be obtained by two
main methods that are simultaneous irradiation and pre-
irradiation method. In simultaneous method, the backbone poly-
mer is irradiated while immersed in monomer solution. In
preirradiation method, the backbone polymer is irradiated in inert
condition to generate radicals and subsequently react with a
monomer under controlled condition. The degree of grafting
may be adjusted by selection of absorbed dose and reaction
parameters to develop specially designed selective copolymers
for specic uses (Nasef and Gu ven, 2012)
Graft copolymerization of glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) onto
polymer substrates is advantageous because the epoxy group of
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/radphyschem
Radiation Physics and Chemistry
0969-806X/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.radphyschem.2013.05.035
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: +63-89112000; fax.: +6389202968.
E-mail addresses: jamaliah@nuclearmalaysia.gov.my,
fath_aries@yahoo.com (J. Sharif).
Radiation Physics and Chemistry 91 (2013) 125131
GMA can be easily modied to provide functions such as ion
exchange, adsorption of toxic gases while the original properties
remain intact (Hwang et al., 2004). Radiation induced grafting of
natural bers have been studied by several researchers. Jordan et al.
(2013) has grafted GMA onto water hyacinth bers (Eichhornia
crassipes) through simultaneous grafting technique using -rays.
They found optimum grafting conditions such as absorbed dose,
dose rate and monomer concentration as 10 kGy, 8 kGy/h
1
and 5%,
respectively. At the optimum conditions, degree of grafting of GMA
onto water hyacinth was found to be 58%. Other researchers had
grafted GMA onto kapok bers through pre-irradiation technique
using gamma rays. The kapok was treated with sodium chlorite to
remove phenolic compounds before used as backbone polymer. The
authors found that grafting yield increased with increasing tempera-
ture from 30 1C to 60 1C, and absorbed dose from 40 to 100 kGy
(Kang et al., 2007). Recent work on kenaf bers was done by Nor
Hashimah et al. (2012), who investigated the effect of partial
delignication of kenaf bers for radiation graft copolymerization
of chloro methyl styrene (CMS). Lignin plays important role in
radiation grafting of kenaf bers. Removal of lignin is crucial for
enhancement of grafting yield (Nor Hashimah et al., 2012). In the
present study we report on the effect of absorbed dose, reaction
temperature, reaction time and monomer concentration on pre-
irradiation grafting of glycidyl methacrylate onto kenaf bers treated
with low concentration of sodium chlorite solution.
2. Experimental
2.1. Materials
Kenaf bast bers were bought from Lembaga Kenaf dan
Tembakau Negara (LKTN) Pasir Putih Kelantan Malaysia. Sodium
chlorite (Sigma), Glycidyl Methacrylate (Sigma Aldrich) and Tween
20 (Sigma Aldrich), Isopropanol and methanol were purchased
from Sigma Malaysia and used without purication.
2.2. Treatment of kenaf bast bers
Sodium chlorite (NaClO
2
) solution was prepared by dissolving
sodium chlorite in distilled water. The pH of the solution was
adjusted to 4 by adding diluted nitric acid (1 M). 1 l sodium
chlorite solution was poured to a conical ask containing 5 g of
kenaf bers and heated at 70 1C for 6 h with continuous stirring.
After that, the kenaf bers was drained and washed repeatedly
with distilled water and dried in an oven at 60 1C for 12 h.
2.3. Radiation graft copolymerization
About 0.2 g of the treated kenaf bers was placed in a poly-
ethylene zipper bag, purged with nitrogen and sealed. The sample
was placed on dry ice box and irradiated with electron beam. The
energy of electrons was 2 MeV and the current 10 mA at doses
ranging from 10 to 200 kGy. The irradiated bers were immedi-
ately transferred to an ampoule and 100 ml GMAwater emulsion
was added to the ampoule. (Note that the 3% GMAwater emulsion
was purged with nitrogen before use). The ampoule was placed in
a water bath at selected temperature. After predetermined period
of time, the grafted kenaf was removed from the ampoule and
washed repeatedly with methanol to remove excess monomer.
The weight of GMA grafted kenaf was measured after drying
overnight in an oven at 40 1C.
Degree of grafting (D
g
) was determined gravimetrically and
calculated according to the following formula:
D
g
(%)((W
1
W
0
)/W
0
) 100where, W
0
is initial weight of
kenaf and W
1
is weight of kenaf after grafting.
2.4. Sample characterization
Morphology of the sample was studied using a Scanning
Electron Microscopy (SEM) using FEI Quanta 400. Samples were
sputter coated with gold using Bio Rad coating system.
Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) spectra were
taken by using Nicolet IS10 FTIR spectrometer (Thermo Scientic)
at a resolution of 4 cm
1
with single reection diamond universal
attenuated total reection (ATR) accessory.
X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis was performed at room tem-
perature by using a Shimadzu XRD 600 X-ray diffractometer. The
X-ray beam was nickel ltered CuK (1.542 A) radiation oper-
ated at 30 kV and 30 mA. Data were obtained from 2 of 21 to 301
at a rate of 1 1/min.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Treatment of kenaf bers
Kenaf bers were treated with different concentrations of
NaClO
2
at 70 1C for 6 h. Lignin content of treated and untreated
kenaf was determined according to TAPPI T222 om-02 standard
method. The results are presented in Table 1. It can be seen from
the table that lignin content of untreated kenaf bers is 14.3%. The
lignin content was decreased to 9.1, 6.6, 4.0, 3.4 and 3.3% after
treated with 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7 and 1.0% NaClO
2
, respectively. The
results indicate that low concentration of NaClO
2
is able to reduce
lignin content from 14.3% to 3.3% at long reaction time that is 6 h
and at temperature 70 1C. This result is in good agreement with
that of (Nor Hashimah et al., 2012), who studied the effect of
temperature and time for delignication of kenaf bers using
sodium chlorite. During heating NaClO
2
produced chlorine dioxide
which reacted with lignin that binds the lignocellulosic bers. This
process resulted to a change in properties of the kenaf bers from
hydrophobic to hydrophilic owing to the cleavage and removal of
the phenolic compounds (Nor Hashimah et al., 2012). Removal of
lignin is important in radiation grafting of kenaf bers because
radiation can change phenolic compound into quinone structures
consequently enhance formation of homopolymer instead of graft
polymerization of cellulosic bers (Ghost et al., 1994; Wojnarovits
et al., 2010). It was reported that the removal of lignin content in
lignocellulosic bers can be enhanced by the increase of NaClO
2
concentration (Hubbell and Ragauskas, 2010; Yu et al., 2011).
However, Gupta et al. (2010) reported that NaClO
2
at concentra-
tion range 1 to 5% did not cause any signicant improvement on
delignication. According to Archibald et al. (1997) extended
delignication time can led to a massive reduction in lignin
content. Therefore combination of low concentration of NaClO
2
with long reaction time can improve delignication as shown by
our results shown in Table 1.
Removal of lignin by sodium chlorite treatment was also
supported by SEM pictures shown in Fig. 1. The pictures clearly
Table 1
Effect of sodium chlorite (NaClO
2
) concentration on lignin content and degree of
grafting of kenaf ber (Grafting condition: Dose100 kGy, time24 h,
temperature25 1C and GMA concentration 3%).
Concentration of NaClO
2
(%) Lignin content (%) Degree of grafting (%)
0.0 14.3 29
0.1 9.1 46
0.3 6.6 104
0.5 4.0 169
0.7 3.4 185
1.0 3.3 172
J. Sharif et al. / Radiation Physics and Chemistry 91 (2013) 125131 126
show that surface of untreated kenaf bers were coated and were
glued together with compounds that is noncellulose. On the other
hand the surface of sodium chlorite treated kenaf bers looks
cleaner, smoother due to the removal of the noncellulose com-
pound by the NaClO
2
treatment.
Table 1 also shows the degree of grafting of kenaf bers at
different lignin content. It can be seen from the table that degree
of grafting of untreated kenaf bers with lignin content 14.3% is
29%. The degree of grafting increases to 46, 104, 169, 185 and 172%
with the decrease of lignin content to 9.1, 6.6, 4.0, 3.4, and 3.3%,
respectively. These results indicate that removal of lignin is
necessary in order to enhance the formation of grafting of GMA
onto kenaf bers. Delignication process also changes the proper-
ties of kenaf bers from hydrophobic to hydrophilic due to the
cleavage and removal of the phenolic compounds therefore easier
for the monomer to penetrate the kenaf bers for grafting
reaction. Lignin is a branched, three dimensional, complex poly-
mer with both aliphatic and aromatic constituents built mainly
with p-hydroxycinnamyl alcohol with different degree of
methoxylation (Wojnarovits et al., 2010). Upon irradiation with
electron beam, the phenolic compounds change into quinine
structures consequently enhances the formation of homopolymer
instead of graft polymerization. Therefore removal of lignin
signicantly improves grafting of kenaf bers.
3.2. Effect of absorbed dose
Effect of absorbed dose on grafting yield was studied using
kenaf bers treated with 0.7% sodium chlorite. Kenaf bers was
irradiated at different doses and then reacted with 3% GMAwater
emulsion at room temperature for 24 h. Degree of grafting was
calculated and the result is presented in Fig. 2. It can be seen from
the gure that the degree of grafting increased rapidly to 154% at
50 kGy and further increase in absorbed dose increased the degree
of grafting continuously. This result indicates that higher absorbed
doses lead to formation of more free radicals in the kenaf bers.
Consequently more free radicals are available for grafting reaction
of GMA onto kenaf bers. These results are in good agreement
Fig. 1. SEM pictures of kenaf bers before and after treated with sodium chlorite.
J. Sharif et al. / Radiation Physics and Chemistry 91 (2013) 125131 127
with the results obtained by Sekine et al. (2009), who observed
that the degree of grafting of GMA onto nonwoven cellulose bers
increased with the increase in absorbed dose. Jordan et al. (2013)
also showed that the degree of grafting of GMA onto water
hyacinth increase with the increase of absorbed dose. The
increased formation of graft co-polymerization of GMA onto kenaf
bers was evidenced by SEM pictures shown in Fig. 3. It is clearly
seen from the gure that kenaf bers irradiated at 10 and 20 kGy
were grafted with thin layer GMA copolymer. However, when the
absorbed doses were increased to 50, 100, 150 and 200 kGy the
kenaf bers were coated with thick layer of GMA copolymer.
3.3. Effect of reaction temperature and time
Kenaf bers treated with 0.7% sodium chlorite solution were
irradiated with electron beam at a dose of 50 kGy in nitrogen
atmosphere at dry ice temperature (20 1C). Graft copolymeriza-
tion of GMA onto the preirradiated kenaf bers was carried out at
different temperatures and times. Fig. 4 shows the relationship
between degree of grafting (D
g
) and reaction temperature. As
shown in the gure the degree of grafting was increased with the
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
0 50 100 150 200
D
e
g
r
e
e

o
f

g
r
a
f
t
i
n
g

(
%
)
Irradiation dose (kGy)
Fig. 2. Effect of absorbed dose on degree of grafting of GMA onto kenaf bers
treated with 0.7% NaClO
2
, grafted at 25 1C for 24 h.
10 kGy 20 kGy
50 kGy 100 kGy
150 kGy 200 kGy
Fig. 3. SEM pictures of kenaf bers grafted with GMA at different absorbed doses.
J. Sharif et al. / Radiation Physics and Chemistry 91 (2013) 125131 128
increase of reaction temperature. The degree of grafting was
increased from 105% to 110%, 140% and 180% as the temperature
increases from 25 1C to 30, 40 and 60 1C, respectively. However, at
60 1C there was a lot of homopolymer and it was difcult to wash
the kenaf bers. Therefore, for reaction time effect on degree of
grafting study, the reaction temperature is limited to 40 1C only.
Fig. 5 shows the relationship between degree of grafting and
reaction time. The gure shows that the degree of grafting was
increased to 154% with the increase of reaction time up to 3 h and
further increased in reaction time increased the degree of grafting
marginally. The increase in degree of grafting at high temperature
and long reaction time could be due to the increase of interaction
between free radicals and GMA monomer due to the increased
mobility of monomer molecules and their collision with backbone
polymer (Najjar et al., 2000).
3.4. Effect of monomer concentration
In this work the GMA concentration was varied in the range
2 to 5% while the Tween 20 concentration was xed at 1% for
preparation of emulsion which was stable for the whole period of
grafting process. Effect of GMA concentration on degree of grafting
of kenaf bers was studied at xed absorbed dose of 50 kGy. The
grafting reaction was carried out at 40 1C up to 3 h. The relationship
between degrees of grafting with grafting time at various GMA
concentrations is presented in Fig. 6. It can be seen from the gure
that the degree of grafting was increased with the increase of
monomer concentration from 2% to 5%. Higher degree of grafting
at high GMA concentration is expected since radicals generated at
kenaf bers after preirradiation able to interact with more monomer
molecules at higher monomer concentration. Overall the degree of
grafting increase with time, with rapid increase at 1 h and reaching
plateau after that. The increase of D
g
with time due to propagation of
grafting chains takes place due to availability of more active species
(Tripathy et al., 2009). It is also observed that the degree of grafting
increase abruptly after 3% GMA due to the availability of more GMA
molecules to interact with radicals on kenaf bers.
3.5. FTIR analysis
FTIR analysis was conducted on raw kenaf bers, bleached
kenaf bers and grafted kenaf bers with degree of grafting of 76%
and 157%. Fig. 7 shows the FTIR spectra for the samples. It can be
seen from the gure that there is not much difference in the
spectra of kenaf bers and bleached kenaf bers. In the spectrum
of grafted kenaf bers however, due to high graft ratio, the
spectrum of poly(GMA) dominates, the underlying kenaf bers
peaks are seen as weak absorbances. Some peaks due to substrate
can be seen for spectrum of the sample grafted to 76% (of
1623 cm
1
and 1016 cm
1
). They are however fully covered with
the peaks due to poly(GMA) for 157% grafted sample. Both raw
kenaf bers and bleached kenaf bers show O-H stretching
absorption at 3340 cm
1
, CH stretching at 2904 cm
1
, CC
stretching for lignin at 1623 cm
1
and CO stretching from
cellulose unit at 1016 cm
1
. However, for GMA grafted kenaf bers
there are a peaks at 1730 cm
1
assigned to CO streching vibra-
tion and 1140 cm
1
to CO stretching vibration indicating the
presence of ester group COO. The characteristic peak for epoxy
at 1233, 905 and 842 cm
1
are present in GMA grafted kenaf
spectrum which indicates successful grafting of GMA onto kenaf
bers. The presences of these three peaks are also reported by
other researchers (Jordan et al., 2013; Wojnarovits et al., 2010).
3.6. X-ray diffraction measurement
X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurement was carried out on kenaf
bers before and after grafting in order to study the crystalline
structural changes owing to the introduction of GMA onto kenaf
ber. XRD patterns of ungrafted kenaf ber and kenaf ber with
different degree of grafting are shown in Fig. 8. It can be seen from
the gure that the crystallinity peak for the ungrafted and grafted
kenaf bers occurs at the same 2 angle which means no changes
in crystalline structure. However, the reection peak intensity of
all grafted kenaf ber are lower and decrease with the increase in
degree of grafting. This result indicates that crystallinity content
0
50
100
150
200
250
20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60
D
e
g
r
e
e

o
f

g
r
a
f
t
i
n
g

(
%
)
Reaction Temperature (C)
Fig. 4. Effect of temperature on the degree of grafting of GMA onto kenaf ber
treated with 0.7% NaClO
2
and irradiated at 50 kGy and reaction time 3 h.
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
0 1 2 3 4 5
D
e
g
r
e
e

o
f

g
r
a
f
t
i
n
g

(
%
)
Reaction time (hours)
Fig. 5. Effect of time on degree of grafting of GMA onto kenaf ber treated with
0.7% NaClO
2
, irradiated at 50 kGy and reaction temperature 30 1C.
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
D
e
g
r
e
e

o
f

g
r
a
f
t
i
n
g

(
%
)
rection time (hrs)
2% 3% 5%
Fig. 6. Effect of monomer concentration on degree of grafting of kenaf bers
treated with 0.7% NaClO
2
, irradiated at 50 kGy at grafting temperature 40 1C for 3 h.
J. Sharif et al. / Radiation Physics and Chemistry 91 (2013) 125131 129
decreases with the increase in the degree of grafting. The decrease
in crystallinity is due to the dilution of the inherent crystallinity by
incorporation of amorphous poly GMA graft. This result is in
agreement with Takacs et al. (2005), who reported crystallinity
of grafted cellulose decrease with the increase of grafting yield.
Nasef et al. (1999) also found that grafting of styrene onto poly
(tetrauoroethylene-co-peruorovinyl ether) semicrystalline poly-
mer reduces its crystallinity.
4. Conclusion
This study shows that raw kenaf bers contain about 14.3%
lignin. The lignin was removed by treatment with sodium chlorite
solution. The lignin content was decreased to as low as 3.3% with
the increased of sodium chlorite concentration from 0.1 to 1 wt%.
Radiation induced grafting of GMA onto treated kenaf bers
produces higher degree of grafting compared to untreated kenaf
bers. The effects of grafting parameters such as absorbed dose,
reaction temperature and time and monomer concentration were
investigated using kenaf bers treated with 0.7% sodium chlorite.
At absorbed dose of 50 kGy, reaction time 3 h, reaction tempera-
ture 40 1C and monomer concentration 3%, we manage to produce
degree of grafting about 150%. The formation of radiation induced
graft copolymerization was conrmed by SEM pictures which
show thick formation of poly GMA at high absorbed dose. FTIR
spectrum of GMA grafted kenaf bers also show clearly the
presence of characteristic peaks due to GMA. While XRD results
show the degree of crystallinity was decreased with the increase
of degree of grafting.
Acknowledgements
The authors are very grateful to Mr. Wilfred Sylvester Paula and
Mrs. Zaiton Selamat for their help in getting the XRD results and
SEM pictures. We also thank the Ministry of Science, Technology
and Innovation Malaysia for funding the project under Science
Fund grant 03-03-01-SF0171.
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(b)
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(d)
-0.24
-0.22
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-0.14
-0.12
-0.10
-0.08
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g
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