Dear Yejun,

I suggest to follow the procedure described by Fu et al. published in eXPRESS Polymer Letters Vol.6, No.10 (2012) 794–804; 

Ultrasonication (US)

About 5 g MCC was dispersed in 500 mL distilled water under continuous stirring for a whole day, then ultrasonicated for 60 min using an ultrasonic homogenizer (KBS-1200, China) with an output Zhou et al. – eXPRESS Polymer Letters Vol.6, No.10 (2012) 794–804 795 power of 1200 W, equipped with a sonication probe

of 20 mm. In order to avoid overheating, the beaker with the cellulose suspension was put in an ice bath with controlled temperature. Two hours after the ultrasonication process ended, nanocellulose was obtained from the water suspension by decanting the supernatant into other vessels. The resultant suspension with pH of 7 was stored at 4°C before further analysis or treatments.

Using this procedure you will be able to avoid the centrifuging step; instead you conduct sonication which is followed by decantation.

To view Fu et al.'s full paper, please use the following link:

http://www.expresspolymlett.com/articles/EPL-0003461_article.pdf

Hoping this will be helpful,

Rafik

Dear Dr. Karaman, What is the yield obtained from this procedure? Is it comparable to acid hydrolysis?

Dear Dr. Karaman,

Thanks so much for your help!

Thanks

Yejun

use a cosolvent. see : Preparation and characterization of sterically stabilized nanocrystalline cellulose obtained by periodate oxidation of cellulose fibers, H, Yang, D. Chen and T.G.M. van de Ven, Cellulose (2015) 22:1743–1752

 and Preparation and characterization of sterically stabilized nanocrystalline cellulose obtained by periodate oxidation of cellulose fibers. H. Yang, D. Chen and T. G.M. van de Ven, Cellulose 22, 1743–175 (2015)

Dear Yejun Zhu,

Do you want to extract nanocellulose fibers or nanocrystalline celulose?

Hello, Cleverton Pirich,

Thanks for your interest. I would like to extract both nanocellulose fibers and nanocrystalline celulose. I am working on nanocrystalline celulose currently. Extraction of nanocellulose fiber needs high pressure homogenizer or micro fluidizer, which unfortunately I don't have.

Yours

Yejun