ORIGINAL RESEARCH Surface modification of banana fibers using organosilanes: an IGC insight Emanuel Alonso . Laly A. Pothan . Artur Ferreira . Nereida Cordeiro Received: 12 September 2018 / Accepted: 21 February 2019 Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2019 Abstract Banana fibers are an agricultural waste material with a great exploitation potential due to their cellulose-rich content. Raw banana fibers (RBF) were treated with 3-aminopropyltriethoxy silane and glyci- doxypropyltrimethoxy silane to improve the inherent limitations of banana fibers, namely its poor cell adhesion. The fibers’ modification was evaluated by inverse gas chromatography (IGC). Similar c s d values were observed between the RBF and silane-treated fibers (39–41 mJ/m 2 ), which indicates similar reac- tivity towards apolar probes. However, the decrease in the entropic parameter indicates the silane covalent bonding with the cellulose chains making a stiffer structure. Organosilane grafting was confirmed by an increased basic character in the silane-treated fibers (K b /K a from 1.03 to 2.81). The surface morphology also changed towards higher contact area (S BET increases 6.7 times) and porosity (Dp increases up to 67%). Both morphological and functional group reactivity changes suggest that the organosilane treat- ment offers new opportunities for these fibers to be used as adsorbents for proteins as well as to cell adhesion. Therefore, IGC proved a simple and viable technique in the characterization of silane-treated fibers. E. Alonso Á N. Cordeiro (&) LB3, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Madeira, 9000-390 Funchal, Portugal e-mail: ncordeiro@staff.uma.pt L. A. Pothan Department of Chemistry, Bishop Moore College, Mavelikara, Kerala 690110, India A. Ferreira CICECO – Aveiro Institute of Materials and A ´ gueda School of Technology and Management, University of Aveiro, 3754-909 A ´ gueda, Portugal N. Cordeiro CIIMAR - Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, University of Porto, 4450-208 Matosinhos, Portugal 123 Cellulose https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-019-02329-9