Structural Modification of Cellulosic Fabric via Esterification Using Jatropha curcas Seed Oil

This paper presents the results of x-ray diffraction of a cellulose fabric treated with oils extracted from the seed of Jatropha curcas; the oils were extracted with hexane under reflux while the fabric was purified by scouring, bleaching and mercerization to remove dirt and coloring matter in order to make it suitable for esterification. Apart from the controlled sample which was un-esterified, other samples of the same fabric were treated with different volume and concentration of the oil under the same temperature. The x-ray diffraction analysis carried out on all samples showed that while the control sample had a sharp single peak at 24.033° all the esterified samples showed broad split peaks at angles ranging from 20.308o to 22.809o; also while the control sample had inter-atomic (or d-spacing) of 3.702 Å those of the treated sample ranged from 3.8984 Å to 4.3727 Å, in addition to these the peak width increased from 1.5o in the control sample to between 1.9o to 2.8o in the treated samples. Other significant results showed that the peaks intensity increased from 5489 to highest value 8313 in the sample treated with 20 cm3 of oil. Crystallinity was observed to reduce from 65% in the control to about 63% for esterified fabrics samples and lastly, crystallite size reduced from 9.9 nm to between 5.3 nm to 7.7 nm. The observed structural modifications in treated fabric may have direct influence on the physical, mechanical properties as well as dye-ability of the treated samples. The result of water Imbibition also revealed structural modification as there was a decrease in the amount of water imbibed by esterified fabric, indicating a reduction in the number of OH groups in the new cellulose derivative as revealed in the x – ray analysis. Hence the esterified fabric will be less susceptible to microbial attack during storage.