Abstract: In order to solve the problems of further treatment and environmental pollution caused by textile industry waste, flax yarn waste was used to prepare cellulose through chemical degumming process. Then the product was grafted with acrylic acid to synthesize a novel cellulose-based superabsorbent composite. The synthesis process was optimized by single-factor experiments and the property of the product was also characterized. The optimal synthesis conditions obtained were: crylic acid at 5 g/g cellulose, ammonium persulfate at 0.1 g/g cellulose, N, N′-methylene-bis-acrylamide at 0.04 g/g cellulose, reaction temperature at 70℃, reaction time at 3 h. The water absorbencies of the obtained superabsorbent composite were 656 g/g distilled water, 382 g/g natural rainwater and 65 g/g 0.9wt% aqueous NaCl solution. The water retentions were 74.3% when the product was air dried at room temperature for 12 d, and 81.2 and 26.4% respectively when it was dried in oven at 30 and 60℃ for 10 h. The encouraging results suggest that the synthesized flax cellulose-based superabsorbent composite possess good water absorbency and retention capacities and can be used in the fields of agriculture and horticulture.

Key words: waste flax yarn, cellulose, superabsorbent resin, graft copolymerization, water absorbency, water retention