Water Barrier Arabinoxylan Hemicelluloses from Sugarcane Bagasse

The hemicellulose from sugarcane bagasse was extracted sequentially with steam treatment followed by alkali and were characterized by chemical methods, SEC-MALLS, FT-IR and 13C NMR. The hemicellulose from steam pre-treatment was found to contain gluco-arabinoxylans while alkaline peroxide extraction yielded predominately linear arabinoxylans with varying amount of lignin. These arabinoxylans with high lignin content were tested for barrier properties on cardboards, to be used as food packaging materials. Due to lignin content, these hemicelluloses were found to increase the water barrier properties of the cardboard.