Influence of the reaction time during the treatment of bacterial cellulose with sulfuric acid solution

Biomaterials are one of the most important parts of the medical device industry. Being used frequently in the development of Scaffolds for the tecidual regeneration. Bacterial cellulose is a biomaterial widely used in tissue regeneration. Due to its high content of hydrogen bonds, its crystallinity is high and its solubility is low, which makes its use difficult. Studies carried out with anteriority showed the modification suffered by bacterial cellulose treated with sulfuric acid solutions. The objective of this work was to study the influence of reaction time on crystallinity in the treatment of bacterial cellulose with sulfuric acid solution. Bacterial cellulose was modified by acid hydrolysis with sulfuric acid solutions of 48 or 64% for 60, 120 and 240 min. In all cases, the hydrolysed cellulose was washed with distilled water until pH 7, subsequently the cellulose was washed with ethanol and dried in an oven at 37 degrees C until a constant mass. The samples obtained were characterized by X-ray diffraction and the crystallinity index, the apparent crystallite size, the crystallite inner chains and the Z-discriminant function were determined. The results showed that the reaction time has a statistically significant influence on the crystallinity of bacterial cellulose. (AU)