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cellulose nano fibrils from
a novel material Ficus
natalensis barkcloth

Amjad Farooq1,2 , Shuai Jiang1,2,

Aamir Farooq3,
Muhammad A Naeem4 ,
Afzal Ahmad4 and Lifang Liu1,2

Abstract
We report for the first time the extraction of cellulose nano fibrils from Ficus natalensis
barkcloth fibers by means of chemical treatments and catalytic oxidation of cellulose
fibers by using 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl radical (TEMPO). After every stage
of treatments, the structural properties of barkcloth fibers powder (BC-PW), cellulose
fibers (BC-NB) and cellulose nano fibrils (BC-CNF) were carefully characterized by
means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy
(TEM) for morphological analysis, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and
X-ray diffraction techniques for chemical analysis, and thermal properties were done by
thermo-gravimetric analysis. FTIR results revealed the progressive removal of non-
cellulosic contents and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis showed that the crystallinity
increased with the successive alkali and bleaching treatments. Finally, by evaluating the
TEM images, the average diameter of the nano-cellulose fibrils from Ficus natalensis
barkcloth was also confirmed as 28
0.6 nm and the length in hundred nano meters
was recorded. The resultant cellulose nano fibrils maintaining the cellulose I structure
had dimensional properties in nano-scale, higher crystallinity (68.5), and better thermal

1
College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai, PR China
2
Innovation Center for Textile Science and Technology, Donghua University, Shanghai, China
3
School of Automation, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China
4
Key Laboratory of Eco-Textile, Ministry of Education, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China
Corresponding author:
Lifang Liu, Donghua University, Songjiang Campus, Shanghai 201620, China.
Email: lifangliu@dhu.edu.cn
2 Journal of Industrial Textiles 0(0)

stability (305.62 C). The barkcloth cellulose nano fibrils can be used in nano technology
like food packing material, nano composites and medical textiles.

Keywords
Materials, properties, structure properties, fibrous materials, cellulose nano fibrils

Introduction
Environmental fortification has become an important and challenging issue in the
recent years [1]. The reason is the formation of non-biodegradable materials
like fossil fuels and the byproducts of petroleum refineries [2]. Additionally,
these caused severe issues in the health of humans and marine life [3]. Therefore,
due to the increasing contemplations of the United Nation Organization (UNO)
environmentalist and World Health Organization (WHO) attention, recently, a lot
of studies have focused on the conservation and environment preservation [4,5].
The key advantage of these investigations is the use of natural polymers from
natural resources like plants and animal matter.
Cellulose is the most abundant natural biopolymer in the world [6]. It is widely
present in plants (approximately 40–55 wt.%) and bacteria [7] and considered to be
the lasting renewable biomass, nontoxicity, biodegradability, stability, low cost
and consequently a good substitute to synthetic products [8–10]. Cellulose and
their derivatives are utilized in various applications such as coating development,
food packing, electrical elements, papermaking and textures [11]. Furthermore, it
has a unique structure which comprised of highly stereo-regular linear homo-
polysaccharide of B-1, 4-linked anhydro-D-glucose units with a high aspect
ratio, i.e. 2–50 nm wide and hundreds of nanometer long which endows the cellu-
lose with tensile stiffness (2–6 GPa) [12–14]. The cellulose nanomaterial exhibited
considerable features and characteristics, such as hydrophilicity, high elastic mod-
ulus (140–150 GPa), lightweight (1.5 g/cm3), low thermal expansion coefficient in
the axial direction, broad chemical-modification capacity, crystallinity character
and high surface area [15–19].
The extraction of cellulose fibers to produce polymeric materials is a complex
phenomenon [20]. In the learning resources, several methods (acid hydrolysis,
mechanical defibrillation and TEMPO oxidation) have been applied to break
the inter-fibrillar hydrogen bonds between the hydroxyl groups of cellulose for
the extraction of nano-materials or nano-crystals [14]. Amongst all, acid hydrolysis
(late 1940s) is described as the primary method which yielded crystalline rod-
like cellulose nano-crystals (CNC) [21]. In the mechanical defibrillation method,
the nano cellulose fibrils (CNF) are isolated from the constituent of
fiber matrix [22]. The 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-oxyl- (TEMPO) mediated
Farooq et al. 3

oxidation method liberated the nano cellulose fibrils by mechanical

disintegration treatment [23]. TEMPO oxidation method which is widely used is
advantageous over other methods since it generated efficiently CNF with a uni-
form size [24]. Additionally, TEMPO does not change the crystallographic forms
of the cellulosic fibers, which is beneficial in the application of nano-composite
materials [25].
In the recent years, researchers and technical experts have focused on the agri-
cultural wastes (cotton stalk, Ammophila arenaria, napier grass, rice husk, etc.) for
the CNF production instead of wood fibers [15,26–28], as they have shorter growth
cycles, lower lignin contents, biodegradable, environmental friendly and also dis-
integrates into CNF easily [29]. Thus, the production of CNFs from broad sources
of biomasses, including wood, non-woody plants and agricultural residues has
become the subject of interest for the investigation. Ficus natalensis is a deciduous
large tree of 20 m height, whose inner bark is a naturally biodegradable material
which can be freely unwrapped from the stem, and most interestingly it takes few
months to regenerate a fresh bark which can be used multiple times, and these trees
are extensively distributed in Kenya, Zambia, Uganda, Malawi and South Africa
[30]. Anciently, the barkcloth is used in cultural inheritance like shoes, clothes and
bags, but now a days many researchers are trying to evaluate the effectiveness of
bark cloth extracted from Ficus natalensis species, as Rwawiire et al. [19] used
barkcloth in the development of a bio-composite, which is based on green epoxy
polymer and natural cellulose fabric (bark cloth) for the automotive instrument
panel applications [19]. Similarly, morphology, thermal, and mechanical charac-
terization of barkcloth from Ficus natalensis were also investigated [31].
Meanwhile, the low thermal conductivity of nonwoven barkcloth fabric having
good absorption behavior as acoustic and thermal properties was evaluated by
Rwawiire et al. [32].
However, as natural polymers are attracting much attention [33] especially nano
cellulose fibrils (CNF) from plants which are in high demand in global market
expected at USD 1.08 billion by 2020 due to their interestingly increasing demand
in food and pharmaceutical industries [3]. But, barkcloth generated from Ficus
natalensis trees is not evaluated by the extraction and characterization techniques
from a biodegradable, highly available and naturally occurring material. Besides
various applications in cultural outfits of the recent studies show that Ficus nata-
lensis barkcloth is rich in cellulose (68.69%) content [32] which is the cause of
inspiration of this study to extract and characterize the nano cellulose fibrils.
The aim of the present work is to use barkcloth (natural reinforcing component)
as a precursor for the production of CNF. For this purpose, cellulose fibers were
firstly isolated including chemical treatments as alkalization, bleaching and
TEMPO oxidation. Characterization of the CNF has been investigated by trans-
mission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier
transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and thermo
gravimetric analysis (TGA).
4 Journal of Industrial Textiles 0(0)

Experimental works
Materials
Ficus natalensis plants are observed in almost all regions in Kenya and Uganda.
Bio-degradable barkcloth from Ficus natalensis tree was obtained from Kenya,
after extraction techniques as mentioned in Rwawiire et al. [34]. All the chemicals
sodium bromide (NaBr, 99%), sodium chlorite (NaClO2, 80%), sodium hydroxide
(NaOH, 98%), sodium hypochlorite (NaClO, solution, 15%) and hydrochloric
acid (HCl, 37%) were purchased from Sinopharm Chemical Reagent Co., Ltd,
Shanghai, China. Deuterated dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), ethanol (CH3CH2OH,
solution, 98%) and 2,2,6,6-Tetramethylpiperidin-1-yl oxyl (TEMPO, 98%) were
obtained from Aladdin Chemistry Co. Ltd, Shanghai, China.

Extraction of cellulose fibers

Material preparation. Barkcloth material was cut into an approximate length of
2–4 cm and washed thoroughly with purified water at 25 C for 30 min and then
dried out in an oven for maximum moisture elimination at a temperature of 80 C
for 24 h. After fully drying, residual was ground into powder form by using a
DJ-04 grinder (Shanghai Dianjiu Traditional Medicine Machinery Manufacture
Co., Ltd, Shanghai, China) to pass through a 60-mesh sieve, so that non cellulosic
materials can easily be removed [35]. Figure 1 shows the schematic diagram of
cellulose nano fibrils.

NaOH treatment. A total of 50 g/l cleaned and dried barkcloth residual fibers in
powder form was taken and then mixed with 1.0 M NaOH solution for 2 h at 80 C
under constant stirring by keeping the beaker on a magnetic stirrer. Alkali-treated
samples were washed with deionized water for several times, filtered and dried at
40 C for 6 h in the vacuum oven.

Bleaching. Alkali treated samples were bleached as mentioned in [36] briefly by

treating with 2.5% w/v sodium chlorite using material to liquor ratio of 1:20 for
1 h at pH 4.5 under continuous stirring. After that the mixture was thoroughly
washed in a beaker with deionized water. At the end of the process, the left out
mixture was thoroughly washed with deionized water and dried out at 60 C in an
oven until the constant weight was achieved. Then the obtained cellulose fibers
were ground into powder form.

Preparation of cellulose nano fibrils

Cellulose nano fibrils preparation was performed according to the procedure
described by Cao et al. [37] and during this process, cellulose fibers mainly C6
primary hydroxyls groups oxidize to C6 carboxylate groups by TEMPO/NaBr/
NaClO in the water at pH 10–10.5 [38]. Briefly, the above-mentioned cellulose
Farooq et al. 5

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of cellulose nano fibrils extraction.

fibers from barkcloth (10 g) were distributed in the 190 g water for 6 h and later a
fixed amount of NaBr 0.20 g and TEMPO 0.02 g was added to the solution. By
adding drop wise 12% NaClO (18 g) solution The reaction was started under
constant stirring by adding 12% NaClO (18 g) solution dropwise. The pH
(10–10.5) was monitored continuously with the pH meter and adjusted with
sodium hydroxide aqueous solution (0.5 mol/L). After that 5 mL ethanol was
added to stop the reaction followed by stirring for another 20 min. The obtained
product was washed several times with deionized water to remove the chemicals
and centrifuged at 1960g for 15 min; 1.0 g nano cellulose slurry was dispersed into
100 g of water and placed in an ice bath for 5 min sonication at 10,000 r/min.

Characterization
Composition analysis
The composition (cellulose, lignin, and ash content) of barkcloth was determined
by using the standard methods. Calorimetric method was used to determine the
cellulose content by using anthrone reagent [39]. For lignin content, APPITA
P11s-78 method was employed as mentioned in [40], while TAPPI method
211-om 93 as reported in [41] was used to measure the ash content at 525 C.
6 Journal of Industrial Textiles 0(0)

Scanning electron microscopy analysis

Scanning electron micrographs of CNF were carried out to observe the surface
morphology of the samples using an ultra-high resolution scanning electron
microscopy JSM-6360LA instrument (Jeol, Japan) using an accelerating voltage
of 15 kV. Before the SEM analysis of the specimens, a very thin film of gold
coating on the surface of all the samples with vacuum sputter coater (model SC
500) was done.

Transmission electron microscopy analysis of CNF

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) (model JEM-2100 TEM (JEOL Ltd,
Tokyo, Japan) was used to determine the dimensions of cellulose nano fibrils
obtained from Ficus natalensis bark cloth fibers. Using a pipette, a drop of diluted
suspension of 1 wt.% CNF dispersion was deposited on a glow-discharged carbon-
coated Cu grid. The redundant liquid solution was drained with filter paper.
The grid was left to be dried at room temperature and then tested the dimensions
of the imaged cellulose nano fibrils with an accelerating voltage of 80 kV.

Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy

The FTIR spectra of samples Ficus natalensis barkcloth fibers powder, cellulose
fibers and cellulose nano fibrils were recorded by grinding and mixing all the
samples with potassium bromide, KBr and then firmly compressing into pill
form. The FTIR spectra were recorded using an instrument (Thermo Fisher
Scientific Co., Ltd, Waltham, MA, USA) in the range of 400–4000 cm1 with a
resolution of 4 cm1 and 64 scans.

Thermo gravimetric analysis

The dried samples were analyzed with Perkin Elmer TGA-7 thermo-gravimetric
analyzer. Each sample (0.4–0.7 mg) was put into a platinum sample pan and heated
from 30 C to 600 C under a nitrogen (N2) atmosphere with a gas flow rate of
20 mL/min at a heating rate of 10 C/min.

X-ray diffraction analysis

XRD data were obtained using the instrument D500 diffractometer (SIEMENS)
to determine the crystallinity index CrI of Ficus natalensis barkcloth fibers raw
material, cellulose fibers and cellulose nano fibrils. Each sample was milled into
powder form to obtain a uniform X-ray exposure, using a monochromatic Cu Ka
radiation source in the step-scan mode of 2h angle ranging from 10 to 60 at a
scanning time of 5.0 mint with a resolution of 0.02 using the 200 mA current and
40 kV operating voltage. To characterize the crystallinity, the crystallinity index
CrI of every sample was calculated as mentioned in equation (1) by Segal method
Farooq et al. 7

mentioned in [42] using the maximum intensity of the diffraction from the 002
plane (I002), and the minimum intensity between the 002 and 110 peaks (Iam).

I002  Iam
CrIð%Þ ¼ 100  (1)
I002

Results and discussion

Chemical composition
A comprehensive analysis of content of different constituents of the barkcloth was
determined by using different standard methods. To get an average value, three
samples were taken for all components of barkcloth material. The samples had
average value of a-cellulose, lignin and hemicellulose of 34.5
1%, 19.5
0.9%
and 23.5
0. 8%, respectively, but could be lower than the report mentioned in
Rwawiire et al.[32]. Barkcloth a-cellulose (34.5
1%) contents are higher as com-
pared to various cereal straws, non woody and perennial sources of cellulose as
reported in literature [43–47], for example wheat straw [48], miscanthus cane [49],
rye husk [50] and giant reed [47] contain 30%, 31%, 26% and 29.18–32.93%
cellulose, respectively. The importance of the barkcloth material from Ficus nata-
lensis tree is obvious mainly due to its regrowing ability after several harvests and
admirable cellulose contents present in it.

Surface morphology by SEM analysis

Before SEM images analysis, it is important to assess the visual macroscopic evo-
lution at each steps of CNF isolation. Figure 2 illustrates that the chemical treat-
ments changed the appearance of the untreated barkcloth material (Figure 2(a)
and (b)). Figure 2(c) shows the bleached material which is white brown in color
and obviously different from the untreated barkcloth fibers powder due to the
removal of non-cellulosic constituents such as lignin, hemicelluloses, wax and
pectin [51]. The observed white color of the final product (Figure 2(c)) is an indi-
cation of almost pure cellulosic material as reported in Taflick et al. [52]. The yield
of the extracted CNF from dried cellulose fibers was found to be 50%.
Figure 3 shows the micrographs of raw material and it was observed that the
barkcloth raw material (Figure 3(a)) is composed of individual fibers which are
adhered naturally into bundles that give strength to each other. Figure 3(b) shows
the conversion of barkcloth fibers into powder form (BC-PW) after passing
through the sieve mess 60 and the BC-PW samples show an unaligned and
random structure.
As shown in Figure 4(a), the applied chemical treatments (alkali treatment and
bleaching) on BC-PW, caused to align and isolate the fibers by eliminating the non-
cellulosic fractions and impurities presented in the Ficus natalensis barkcloth fibers
8 Journal of Industrial Textiles 0(0)

Figure 2. (a) Photographs of untreated cut pieces of Ficus natalensis barkcloth material
(b) alkali-treated samples (c) final bleached product.

Figure 3. (a) Barkcloth raw material, (b) barkcloth fibers powder (BC-PW).

powder. Figure 4(b) shows freeze dried needle shaped, closely linked and soft foam
like cellulose nano fibrils, when water was transfered out from the fibrous network
by freeze drying method. The freeze-dried CNF consisted of thin film pieces inter-
laced with sub-micron fibrils.

Transmission electron microscopy analysis

As TEMPO oxidation at controlled conditions expected to reduce the amorphous
region of cellulose fibers and transversely increase the crystalline domains of the
treated sample [53], finally a reduction is noticed in the size of cellulose fibers from
the micron to nano meter scale. Figure 5(a) provides the TEM images of CNF
fibrils which show that the samples fined down to the smallest elements next to the
cellulose molecules after the TEMPO oxidation. TEM micrograph at 500 nm of
individual cellulose exhibits high length/width nano fibrils ratios and the obtained
structures were relatively isolated with defined shapes. To better understand the
Farooq et al. 9

Figure 4. (a) cellulose fibers (BC-NB), (b) freeze dried cellulose nano fibrils.

Figure 5. (a) Transmission electron micrograph from diluted suspension of CNF extracted from
Ficus natalensis barkcloth fibers (b) diameter distribution of cellulose nano fibrils.

dimension of CNF samples, the TEM image was evaluated by using the image J
software to get the diameter frequency distribution data. The diameter distribution
through image J software of 100 samples of CNF extracted from Ficus natalensis
barkcloth fibres was taken to better understand the dimensions and shape as
shown in Figure 5(b), and the diameter was distributed mainly from 15 to
41 nm, average diameter of about 28
0.6 nm and length in several hundred
nano meters.

Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy

Figure 6 shows the FTIR spectra recorded for barkcloth powder, alkali treated and
bleached fibers cellulose nano fibers obtained after TEMPO oxidation. The main
10 Journal of Industrial Textiles 0(0)

Figure 6. FTIR spectra for BC-PW, BC-NB and BC-CNF.

peaks are reported in Table 1. The spectrum of all the samples has broad absorp-
tion bands having peaks around 3306–3401 cm1, which is corresponded to –OH
stretching vibrations of methyl groups [11] and peaks at 2900 cm1 are ascribed to
the C–H stretching vibrations of methylene groups. It is worth noting that these
two characteristics peaks are assigned to stretching of hydrogen bonds and bend-
ing of hydroxyl (OH) groups due to cellulose existence in all three samples, indi-
cating that cellulose was not removed during alkalization, bleaching and TEMPO
oxidation of all the samples. A shoulder was observed around 1165 cm1 in the
spectrum corresponding to the BC-PW ascribed to C–C stretching vibration.
Similarly, the broad absorption band at around 1028 cm1 is due to C–O–C pyra-
nose ring stretching vibration. Meanwhile, the BC-PW shows absorption peaks
at 1603 cm1 which corresponds to O–C ¼ O asymmetric stretching, but in case of
BC-CNF, the peaks moved to the point 1606 cm1 which is bit sharper than
BC-PW, attributed to carboxylate groups caused by TEMPO oxidation process [12].

Thermal analysis
The thermal stability of both untreated and chemically treated Ficus natalensis
barkcloth fiber samples was done by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Figure 7
graphically represented the TGA and derivative thermogravimetry (DTG) curves
obtained for BC-PW, BC-NB and TEMPO-oxidized barkcloth cellulose nano
fibers BC-CNF which occurs over a wide range of temperature according to the
degradation of all the samples constituents [54]. Regardless of their treatment, an
initial weight loss of the samples occurs below 100 C. The initial weight reduction
is attributed to the amount of water moisture content presented in each sample.
Farooq et al. 11

Table 1. FTIR spectra of all the samples at different stages of

treatment.

Barkcloth fibers Groups

BC-PW BC-NB BC-CNF

3305 3300 3306 –OH stretching
2902 2900 2900 C–H vibration
1603 1603 1606 O–C¼O asymmetric
1165 1163 1165 C–C band
1028 1028 1028 Broad absorption band

Figure 7. TGA and DTG curves of barkcloth fiber powder (BC-PW), alkali treated, bleached
fibers (BC-NB) TEMPO oxidized cellulose nano fibrils (BC-CNF).

Compared to BC-PW, the sample BC-NB has higher thermal stability because of
the presence of hemicellulose, lignin, and pectin in untreated sample (BC-PW) [55].
That’s why BC-PW shows onset degradation temperature at about 251 C and final
degradation temperature was at 363  C as similar finding was reported by Tendo
et al. [56]. But in the case of alkali and bleach-treated sample, BC-NB shows higher
onset degradation temperature of 310.62  C and degrading ends at 342 C, close to
the literature which recommends that cellulose degradation takes place between
275 and 400 C [35,57,58]. Meanwhile, cellulose nano fibrils show degradation
peaks lower than those of barkcloth powder (BC-PW) and cellulose fibers (BC-
NB). Decrease of decomposition temperatures of CNF is due to the introduction
of unstable sodium carboxylate groups during TEMPO oxidation [59]. Similarly,
Figure 7 shows the DTG curves for every sample; BC-PW shows two degradation
12 Journal of Industrial Textiles 0(0)

Figure 8. X-ray diffraction patterns of BC-PW, BC-NB and BC-CNF.

peaks which is due to decomposition of non-cellulosic materials and the other peak
shoulder is possibly ascribed to the decomposition of cellulosic compounds.
Meanwhile, BC-NB shows one sharp DTG curve which gave significance evidence
of the removal of non-cellulosic impurities after the alkali treatment and bleaching
of barkcloth fibers. Conversely, the sample of BC-CNF shows reduction in the
early onset degradation temperature with respect to other samples, as TEMPO
oxidation caused the destruction and conversion of macro cellulose into micro
cellulose chains and converted into low molecular weight chains so the activation
energy decreases making the sample less thermal resistant.

X-ray diffraction
XRD evaluation was completed to investigate the crystalline structures of the
fibers and relationship between fiber structures and properties. The X-ray
diffractograms of barcloth fibers powder BC-PW, alkali and bleached treated
fibers BC-NB and cellulose nano fibrils BC-CNF are shown in Figure 8. The
XRD diffractrograms indicated that the diffraction peaks at around 16.02 ,
22.25 and 34.68 have been observed for all the samples, and similar results
were also observed in Haafiz et al. [14]. Figure 8 has illustrated that the diffraction
peaks at around 16.02 (broad) corresponding to 110, 22.25 (sharp intense) cor-
responding to 002 and 34.68 (small) corresponding to 004 [23] have been observed
for the crystallographic planes of the cellulose I. But the diffraction peak at 22 of
cellulose nano fibrils (BC-CNF) is sharper than the other samples due to higher
crystallinity value.
Farooq et al. 13

Table 2. Crystallinity index (CrI) of barkcloth

fibres at different stages of treatment.

Samples CrI (%)

BC-PW 36.8
BC-NB 62.3
BC-CNF 68.5

Chemical purification and treatments affect the crystallinity of natural fibers

like alkali, and bleaching treatment can increase the stiffness of plant fibers by
removing the impurities present in the fibers. The amorphous structure maintained
by intermolecular and intramolecular hydrogen bonding can evaluate the effec-
tiveness of chemical treatments on the extraction of nano cellulose fibrils from
Ficus natalensis barkcloth fibers, and the crystallinity of BC-PW, chemically
treated samples BC-NB and BC-CNF was determined and compared as summa-
rized in Table 2. Increased crystallinity of BC-NB (62.3%) as compared to BC-PW
(36.8%) is attributed to the progressive reduction of amorphous region (main-
tained by intermolecular and intramolecular hydrogen bonding [33]) and
non-cellulosic materials inclined to remove. Similarly from Table 2, the increased
CrI% of cellulose nano fibrils BC-CNF (68.5%) isolated by the controlled
TEMPO-oxidation is associated with the removal of remaining hemicellulose
and amorphous regions in cellulose samples [52].

Conclusion
To our knowledge, the Ficus natalensis barkcloth fibers are the first reported material
for the simultaneous cellulose extraction and derivatization of nano cellulose fibrils
directly from the TEMPO oxidation which can be an efficient material for nano
technology. Chemical purification for cellulose extraction by means of alkali treat-
ment and bleaching was done, obtained cellulose fibers were TEMPO oxidized to get
the cellulose nano fibrils (CNF). The infrared spectroscopy, morphological investi-
gation, and X-ray diffraction analyses confirmed the removal of non-cellulosic mate-
rials. An increase of crystallinity index induced by the chemical treatments from
36.8% to 68.5% was examined, while the diameter reduced to 20–25 nm having
length in hundred nano meters. The overall yield of cellulose fibers based on the
raw material was comparatively good as 34.5
1%. So, the cellulose and nano cel-
lulose fibrils from the barkcloth materials could act as an excellent filler in the
biocomposites.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, and/or
publication of this article.
14 Journal of Industrial Textiles 0(0)

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article: The work was supported by “National Key R&D
Program of China (2018YFC2000900)” and “Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
Universities” (2232018A3-04)”.

ORCID iDs
Amjad Farooq https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0318-2597
Muhammad A Naeem https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6356-1935

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