Efficiency of Response Surface Methodology to Determine Effective Factors on Production Process of Carboxymethyl cellulose from Populus

Cellulose is the most abundant bio-polymer and also has many potential and applications, Therefore, in order to convert it to solvable cellulose in many commercial solvents, it is necessary to modify the cellulose structure with a variety of methods of derivation. Cellulose derivatives have an increasing share in the cellulosic products marketing and it is used in various industries such as sanitary, pharmaceutical, food and industrial., Carboxymethyl cellulose is one of the most important commercial cellulose ether derivatives. The purpose of this study was to investigate the conversion of alpha-cellulose derived from the Deltoides pine species into a useful and more valuable product that called Carboxymethyl cellulose. In order to optimize and investigate the interaction of different process variables, response surface methodology (RSM) was used. For modeling the process, important operational parameters such as concentration of NaOH, ratio of Monochloroacetic acid to cellulose, temperature and the time of etherification as independent variables and the degree of substitution of the samples were considered as the desirable response. Analysis of variance and response level were used to create a function between variables and responses, and optimal conversion conditions were determined. The results showed that the best value presented in the optimal condition proposed by software for the degree of substitution was 31 percent for concentration of etherification, 1.09 for the ratio of Monochloroacetic acid to cellulose, 60 °C for the etherification temperature and 157 minutes for the etherification time.