As shown in Table 1, the Tmax, increasing from raw to NFC fibers, indicated that the treated fibers
were more thermally stable and this is congruent with the crystallinity of the fibers. Although the
crystallinity of MFC is higher compare to the other fibers, the maximum degradation temperature was
found to be lower (326 °C). This might be due to the introduction of sulphate groups into the MFC
surface during hydrolysis [28]. The highest maximum degradation temperature was found for NFC,
357 °C, which is higher than the determined maximum degradation temperature (339 °C) of OPEFBs
58.09 60.7
67.12
80.42
42.52
0
20
40
60
80
100
Raw Pulp Bleached MFC NFC
Crystalinity (%)
Cellulosic fibers
Polymers 2014, 6 2621
nanofiber by Jonoobi et al. [8]. The highest thermal stability was gained in NFC OPEFBs fiber
because of the rapid defibrillation of MCC by the impact of high pressure HPH.