Materials Sciences and Applications, 2020, 11, 150-166 https://www.scirp.org/journal/msa ISSN Online: 2153-1188 ISSN Print: 2153-117X Effect of Ultra-Turrax on Nanocellulose Produced by Acid Hydrolysis and Modified by Nano ZnO by Sol-Gel Method Amanda Ramos Aragão Melo 1 , Jose Carlos Dutra Filho 2 , Roberto Pinto Cucinelli Neto 1 , Wellington Silva Ferreira 3 , Bráulio Soares Archanjo 4 , Raphael Verdan Curti 4 , Maria Ines Bruno Tavares 1 1 Instituto de Macromoléculas Professora Eloisa Mano, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Bl J do Centro de Tecnologia, Ilh do Fundão, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil 2 Instituto SENAI de Inovação em Biossintéticos e Fibras, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil 3 Instituto de Biofísica Carlos Chagas, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil 4 Divisão de Metrologia de Materiais, Instituto Nacional de Metrologia, Qualidade e Tecnologia (INMETRO), Duque de Caxias, Brasil Abstract Cellulose nanocrystals (NCC) and cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) were obtained by a single step process, with synergy between 64% sulfuric acid hydrolysis and high shear from ultra-turrax stirring, which is an advantageous process for disintegrating cellulose microcrystalline and also may improve the hydro- lysis process. The surface modification on the cellulose was performed by the sol-gel process, in which the sulfate groups from hydrolysis were replaced by nanoparticles of zinc oxide, which led to the increase of up to 54 C Tonset, according to thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) results. The morphology and crystallinity degree were characterized by Helium Ion Microscopy (HIM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray diffraction. In addition, the ZnO band was observed in Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, fur- thermore, the change in the zeta potential confirmed the cellulose modifica- tion. The changes in the values of proton spin-spin relaxation time for the systems showing the confined hydrogen in the rigid domains, confirmed the results observed with the aforementioned techniques, for both cellulose after hydrolysis and ZnO modified cellulose, suggesting that ZnO dis- rupted crystal formation in cellulose. Keywords Cellulose Nanocrystal, Cellulose Nanofibril, Nano Zinc Oxide, Acid Hydrolysis, Sol-Gel How to cite this paper: Melo, A.R.A., Filho, J.C.D., Neto, R.P.C., Ferreira, W.S., Archanjo, B.S., Curti, R.V. and Tavares, M.I.B. (2020) Effect of Ultra-Turrax on Nanocellulose Produced by Acid Hydroly- sis and Modified by Nano ZnO by Sol-Gel Method. Materials Sciences and Applica- tions, 11, 150-166 https://doi.org/10.4236/msa.2020.112009 Received: November 23, 2019 Accepted: February 9, 2020 Published: February 12, 2020 Copyright © 2020 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access DOI: 10.4236/msa.2020.112009 Feb. 12, 2020 150 Materials Sciences and Applications