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A simplified and green strategy was provided for the synthesis of cellulose acetate. Cellulose acetate (CA) was isolated from the directly acetylated eucalyptus powder after hydrothermal treatment to selectively remove hemicellulose without delignification. The conversion rate of cellulose (90.75%) and the yield of the acetylated product (61.34%) were greatly improved by hydrothermal treatment, while the re-condensation of lignin during hydrothermal treatment made no adverse difference. The characterization results verified that the acetylated product was cellulose acetate with uniform molecular weight, good thermal stability and semi-crystalline structure. Moreover, CA was used to reinforce polylactic acid (PLA) films prepared by solvent casting. The PLA-CA composite with 5 wt% CA showed an increase of 80.63% in tensile strength and 59.51% in Young's modulus, and their density decreased from 1.2427 g/cm3 to 1.0028 g/cm3. The lightweight and excellent mechanical properties promote the application potential of biodegradable composites to replace petroleum-based plastics.

Lignin/tannin/ZnONP composite coatings were designed for paper-based green packaging. Multiple functions, such as high strength, moisture resistance, low air permeance, heat endurance, UV aging resistance, and antibacterial/mold properties, were successfully integrated into one biobased coating. Prepolymerization improved the physical properties of coatings at high lignin contents. The best ingredient ratio was: 40% lignin, 15% tannin, and 10% ZnONPs (based on tannin weight), and the as-prepared biocoating was labeled LTZn-10. After coated with LTZn-10, the tensile strength and bursting strength of the packaging were efficiently enhanced by more than 3 times and were dramatically increased by 51.6 and 5.6 times at the wet state, respectively, which reveals that the packaging has favorable moisture resistance and it can be used in high humidity environments. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) proved that most of the pores on the paper were blocked by the coatings, which helped to decrease the air permeance by 10.3 times. Meanwhile, ZnONPs were evenly spread on the coatings, which endowed the packaging with excellent antibacterial/mold performance. No colony or mycelium was found in the test against Gram-negative/positive bacteria and eight common molds. Besides, antibacterial activity is only available while the bacteria come in contact with the coating and no active substances were released into the culture medium, which is a good property that can keep the cargo from contamination of antibacterial agents. In addition, the coated paper presented an improved Tg and thermal degradation temperature, indicating that the coated package has favorable thermostability and can maintain its outstanding physical properties in a wider temperature range. Lignin and tannin promoted the UV stability and service life of the coated paper, as a rare physical decrease was observed after UV aging for 72 h. The function-integrated biobased coating with favorable sustainability is a good candidate to be widely used in paper-based green packaging fields.

A lignin-based PU coating was prepared for paper-based green packaging. Two representative diisocyanate were used to prepare the coatings. Due to the rigid aromatic, the physical properties of the TDI system reached the maximum below the lignin content of 40%. The HDI that contains flexible aliphatic chains alleviated the brittleness of coating, and it showed physical advantages when the lignin content was more than 50%. Owing to the high lignin content, the coating presented enhanced thermal stability. After coated with the lignin-based PU coatings, the dry tensile strength of coated paper was improved by 126%. Amazingly, the wet strength was increased from 0.31 to 12.6 MPa with an improvement nearly 40 times. Based on the coordination of lignin, Ag+ was introduced into the PU matrix, which imparted the coating with excellent antibacterial ability. The colony forming units of E. coli and S. aureus were both less than 1. However, no inhibition halo was observed, which indicated that the Ag was firmly anchored on the coating and the antibacterial ability is only available when the bacterial contact the coating surface. The lignin-based PU coating with favorable sustainability and properties shows great potential in paper-based green packaging fields.

In this work, near-complete conversion of lignocellulosic biomass and high products yields were achieved through catalytic transfer hydrogenolysis (CTH) in isopropanol using a heteropoly acid SiW12 synergistic with Pd/C catalyst at a relatively mild condition. The performances of various heteropoly acids and catalytic conditions were extensively examined. The results confirmed that SiW12 exhibited the highest activity on disrupting C–C linkages and C-O linkages than H2WO4, PW12, and PMo12. 34.91 wt% and 43.55 wt% monophenols were achieved for hydrogenolysis of bagasse and eucalyptus, respectively, at their optimal temperature for 5 h. Characterization studies on the lignin oil revealed that the notable structural changes were observed including the breaking of the side chain alkyl-aryl ether bonds and glycosidic bonds, while methoxyl groups were retained. Additionally, particle size of feedstock also has significant impact on the distribution and yields of the monophenols.

Delignified wood with 3D porous structure provides a good platform for constructing multifunctional electromagnetic shielding materials. The objective of this work is to fabricate a non-carbonized nanostructured wood composite by in-situ polymerization of aniline in H3PO4 acidic medium for flame retardancy and electromagnetic shielding. The wood aerogel with hierarchical porous structure after removing lignin and hemicellulose is almost composed of cellulose and provided a satisfactory 3D network structure. The wood porous channels were coated with polyaniline (PANI) by in-situ polymerization providing a high conductivity (22.07 S/m). The polyaniline-wood aerogel (PANI-WA) with a thickness of 2–3 mm showed a good electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding effectiveness of 27.63 dB in the X band (8.2–12.4 GHz). Notably, the material simultaneously possesses excellent flame retardancy, which can self-extinguish and retain its original shape after repeated ignition. PANI-WA also exhibits the ability of photothermal conversion under near-infrared (NIR) irradiation. The interesting PANI-WA has a good potential application for electromagnetic shielding materials with flame retardancy and photothermal conversion under NIR.

Effective removal of Cr(VI) pollution from aquatic environment is in pressing need because of the detrimental effect of Cr(VI) to human health. Herein, we report a facile two-step approach to synthesis MoS2/Lignin-derived Carbon (MoS2@LDC) nanocomposites for highly efficient elimination of Cr(VI) from aqueous solutions. The MoS2@LDC exhibited outstanding removal efficient for Cr(VI) (198.70 mg/g at pH = 2.0, T = 298.15 K and CInitial = 20.0 mg/L). 99.35% of Cr(VI) can be removed by the composites in 30 min. Thermodynamic and kinetic studies suggest the removal of Cr(VI) is through both adsorption and reduction. The performance of MoS2@LDC can be further enhanced by hydrogen plasma treatments, which was attributed to the sulfur vacancies induced improvement in the reduction activity of MoS2 layer. The results of this work can guide the rational design of high-performance nanocomposite for efficient remediation of heavy metals in aquatic environment.