Excellent chemical and material cellulose from tunicates: diversity in cellulose production yield and chemical and morphological structures from different tunicate species

The high crystallinity and the high microfibrils aspect ratio of tunicate cellulose (TC) indicate TC’s excellent chemical and material applications. However, its quantity and quality from different species have never been systematically reported and compared. In this study, the tunics of Ciona intestinalis (CI), Ascidia sp. (AS), Halocynthia roretzi (HR) and Styela plicata (SP) were processed to TC after an identical prehydrolysis-kraft cooking-bleaching sequence, while the tunicate fibrils were chemically and structurally characterized in situ and during the sequence. All tunics studied were composed of crystalline cellulose embedded with protein, lipids, sulfated glycans and mucopolysaccharides. The native composite structures are all very compact. However, the tunics from Phlebobranchia order (CI and AS) are soft, while those from Stolidobranchia, HR and SP, are hard. Fibrous cellulose could be prepared after removing the lipids, sulfated glycans and mucopolysaccharides through prehydrolysis, protein removal through kraft cooking and a final purification by bleaching. The final product is ~100 % pure cellulose which is in large molecular masses, composed of highly crystalline I_β crystals, in elementary microfibrils form, with high specific surface area and thermal stability. There were lower TC yields from the soft tunics than from the hard ones. The cellulose fibrils had a section shape of lozenges with higher crystallinity. This study demonstrates that TC could be obtained in different yields and exhibited different chemical and morphological structures depending on the species. There is a great potential of tunicate resources for preparing excellent chemical and material cellulose.