Corn Stover-Derived TEMPO-CNF Preparation

Lemongrass essential oil (Cymbopogon Schoenanthus Oil, reagent grade, 100%) was purchased from Spectrum Chemical MFG Corp (New Brunswick, NJ, USA). Tween 80 (P1754) was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich, Inc. (St. Louis, MO, USA). Aspergillus flavus Link 200026 NRRL 3357 strains purchased from ATCC (Manassas, VA, USA) were used. All other chemicals and supplies were purchased from VWR (Radnor, PA, USA) or Fisher Scientific (Pittsburgh, PA, USA). Corn stover-derived TEMPO-CNF was prepared according to our previous publication [23 (link)]. Specifically, corn stover was ground to a size below 1/8 inch, followed by washing to remove impurities. Then, corn stover was bleached to remove lignin, followed by alkaline treatment to remove hemicellulose. Lastly, corn stover went through TEMPO oxidation and sonication to achieve TEMPO-CNF. Corn stover-derived TEMPO-CNF had a length of 353 nm, width of 4 nm, surface charge of 1.48 ± 0.09 mmol/g COO⁻ and zeta potential of −65 ± 3 mV [23 (link)]. The as-prepared TEMPO-CNF gel had a solid content of ~3.8 wt% [23 (link)].