Research on the formation mechanism of composites from lignocelluloses and CaCO₃

The purpose of this work is to explore the formation mechanism of lignocellulose composites in ionic liquids, which is very important for the potential applications of lignocellulose composites. In this study, the lignocellulose/CaCO3 composites have been synthesized using different concentrations of CaCO3 by a rapid and green microwave-ionic liquid method. In view of the experimental results and literature, the formation mechanism of the composites from lignocelluloses and CaCO3 was proposed. It is suggested that lignocelluloses accumulated Ca(2+) ions due to the complexation of the Ca(2+) ions and the highly anionic polysaccharide groups of lignocelluloses, and CaCO3 was obtained by the strong electrostatic interactions between carbonate anions and calcium cations. When the content of CaCO3 reached a certain level, the activity of CaCO3 in the composites was mainly as aggregation. Using lignocelluloses instead of cellulose as a template to synthesize the organic-inorganic composites was a facile method, which does not need to separate the lignocelluloses and can utilize all the main components of lignocelluloses.