The process of cellulose and lignin extraction from Vietnam's rice straw without paraffin pretreatment was proposed to improve economic efficiency and reduce environmental pollution. Treatment of the rice straw with ultrasonic irradiation for 30 min increased yields of lignin separation from 72.8% to 84.7%. In addition, the extraction time was reduced from 2.5 h to 1.5 h when combined with ultrasonic irradiation for the same extraction yields. Results from modern analytical methods of FT-IR, SEM, EDX, TG-DTA, and GC-MS indicated that lignin obtained by ultrasound-assisted alkaline treatment method had a high purity and showed a higher molecular weight than that of lignin extracted from rice straw without ultrasonic irradiation. The lignin and cellulose which were extracted from rice straw showed higher thermal stability with 5% degradation at a temperature of over 230 ∘ C. The ultrasonic-assisted alkaline extraction method was recommended for lignin and cellulose extraction from Vietnam's rice straw.

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Polypropylene (PP) based green composites containing 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 wt% of cellulose fibers (CFs) which were extracted from rice straw were successfully prepared by melt blend method. The CFs washed with H2O2 after alkaline extraction showed lower water absorption than that not washed with H2O2. The thermal, mechanical, and biodegradation properties of composites were also investigated. The 10% weight loss temperature of the composites was decreased with the increasing CFs content, but all the composites showed over 300°C. Young’s modulus and flexural properties of PP were improved by blending PP with CFs. The pure PP showed no degradability, but the PP/CFs composites degraded from about 3 to 23 wt%, depending on CFs content after being buried in soil for 50 days. These PP/CFs composites with high thermal, mechanical properties and biodegradability may be useful as green composite materials for various environmental fields.

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