Author details

7. Conclusion

Nanocrystalline Materials

NCC used as filler in polymeric matrices.

Table 6.

production of nanocellulose products.

Acknowledgements

104

Agro-waste is an unavoidable by-product that arises from various agricultural and agro-forest activities' operation. However, different kinds of agro-product industries, change of lifestyle, and population growth are assumed to be within the main factors that increase the rate of waste generation globally and locally. Therefore, proper waste management selections are very important based on the types of wastes and cost-effective factors in order to reduce the damage to the ecosystem. One of the alternatives to reduce agro-waste disposal is converting it to high-end value products such as nanocrystalline cellulose. In the present work, an overview of the production, processes, modification, and application of nanocrystalline cellulose from different agricultural wastes was proposed and leads to the following main concluding remarks: (1) it is important to select the proper raw material of agro-waste fiber, due to a broad variety of structure and chemical composition and its pretreatment process before the extraction process of nanocellulose begin; (2) the surface charge and morphology of nanocrystalline cellulose are affected by the production conditions such as hydrolysis time, temperature, and the acid-to-fiber ratio; and (3) nanocrystalline cellulose can be used in various applications including in hydrophobic polymer after some modification is made. The utilization of several lignocellulosic wastes from agricultural and forest by-product activities becomes the best proposal regarding cost/energy savings and economic development. The agricultural residue is available worldwide, abundant, cheap, and an unexploited source of cellulose that could be used as large-scale

Starch-based polymers [60, 62, 84, 152, 171–173]

Waterborne acrylate [79] Xylan [174–176] Hemicellulose [96]

Polymer References Poly(styrene-co-butyl acrylate) [94, 149, 150] Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) [56, 83, 151] Poly(vinyl alcohol), PVOH [67, 152–154] Polycaprolactone, PCL [155–157] Polypropylene, PP [158, 159] Polystyrene [160] Polysulfone [161] Polyurethane, PU [162–164] Polyvinyl chloride, PVC [165–167] Regenerated cellulose [168, 169] Soy protein [170]

The authors would like to thank Universiti Putra Malaysia for the financial support through the Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) scholarship, Universiti R.A. Ilyas1,2\*, S.M. Sapuan1,2, R. Ibrahim3 , M.S.N. Atikah<sup>4</sup> , A. Atiqah<sup>5</sup> , M.N.M. Ansari<sup>5</sup> and M.N.F. Norrrahim<sup>6</sup>

1 Laboratory of Biocomposite Technology, Institute of Tropical Forestry and Forest Products, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

2 Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Advanced Engineering Materials and Composites Research Centre, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

3 Pulp and Paper Branch, Forest Research Institute Malaysia, Kepong, Selangor, Malaysia

4 Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

5 Institute of Power Engineering, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia

6 Research Center for Chemical Defence, Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

\*Address all correspondence to: ahmadilyasrushdan@yahoo.com

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
