Facile Fabrication of Transparent Cellulose-Based Film with Water and UV Resistance Properties for Potential Agriculture Application

Plastic agricultural films offer a favorable internal environmental climate for plant growth, boosting crop yields, however, to pursue green ecological agriculture, renewable biodegradable materials become attractive candidates to replace non-degradable petrochemical plastic agricultural films. Herein, this work presents a general strategy to fabricate the transparent and biodegradable cellulose-based film with good hydrophobicity and excellent UV resistance using corn husk and lignosulfonate (LS) as primary materials, and methyltrimethoxysilane (MTMS) as surface modifier for potential agriculture application. The results show that the LS uniformly attaches to the surface of the regenerated cellulose (RC) film, and inherits the excellent tensile strength (20.1 MPa) of the RC film after modification, forming a film that resists a certain tensile force and good thermal stability. Due to the excellent UV absorbing ability, the MTMS-modified RC/LS (M-RC/LS) film demonstrates excellent optical properties of shielding about 95% of UV light and allowing nearly 80% of visible light transmittance, providing the required light capacity for plant growth. In conducting water contact angle tests, the hydrophobic properties of the cellulose-based film are improved by surface modification of MTMS (water contact angle ≈ 100.9°), overcoming the drawback of insufficient stability of cellulose and improving its agricultural application possibilities. In addition, the synergistic effect of LS and MTMS results in a certain reduction of water vapor transmission rate of the cellulose-based film. Based on the above properties, the present study provides a facile strategy to prepare UV-resistant and transparent hydrophobic cellulose-based film, which is valuable to prolong their life and protect the safety of crops, promising to replace transparent plastic films for wider applications in agricultural films and other related fields.