Kinetics of Cellulose Deposition in Developing Cotton Fibers Studied by Thermogravimetric Analysis

Abstract

During cotton fibers development, important structural changes occur, which lead to cellulose deposition and organization in the secondary cell wall. Several studies have focused on the analysis of the cell wall extracts of cotton fibers to gain an understanding of the changes in carbohydrate profiles and to determine the changes in crystallinity, cellulosic and non-cellulosic compounds at various stages of the fiber cell wall development. In this research, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was used to study intact fibers harvested from two cotton genotypes. Cellulose macromolecules structural changes occurring during different developmental stages were studied. The results from TGA technique were in agreement with results from other analytical techniques, which indicates that TGA could be a great tool to investigate the onset of cellulose deposition and to evaluate the cell wall composition during fiber development. The results obtained in this study demonstrated that the initiation of the secondary cell wall is genotype-dependent.