Effects of crosslinking degree on the coating properties of arabinoxylan

Abstract

Arabinoxylan (AX) was extracted from sugarcane bagasse and modified through crosslinking with glutaraldehyde (GA). The effects of crosslinking degree on the rheological and coating properties of glutaraldehyde crosslinked arabinoxylan (GAX) were investigated. To better evaluate the degree of crosslinking, the crosslink index was used to represent the degree of crosslinking for the GAX in this study. The viscosity of the GAX solution increased when the degree of crosslinking increased, and the solution demonstrated non-Newtonian flow behavior. A high degree of crosslinking was detrimental to the film and coating properties of the GAX. At an optimum degree of crosslinking, the tensile strength of the GAX films increased by approximately 170% and 60% compared with that of the AX and GAX with the highest degree of crosslinking, respectively; the tensile strength of the GAX-coated paper increased by approximately 15% compared with that of the GAX with the highest degree of crosslinking. When calcium carbonate was mixed with the paper coating adhesives, the GAX showed comparable coating properties to that of polyvinyl alcohol, demonstrating its potential to substitute petroleum-based paper coating adhesives.