A planetary ball milling was applied as a pretreatment of chitin powder to prepare precursors for chitin nanofiber (ChNF) production. The study aims to examine the effects of ball milling conditions (dry milling, and wet milling in neutral and acidic aqueous medium) on the degree of pre-fibrillation of the ChNF precursors and the characteristics of the resulting nanofibers. The results showed that no fibrous-morphology ChNFs were obtained using dry ball milling followed by high-pressure homogenization (HPH), but fibrous-morphology ChNFs were successfully prepared using wet ball milling as a pretreatment. Ball milling in a mildly acidic aqueous medium was found to most effectively pre-fibrillate chitin, thus facilitating fibrillation in the subsequent HPH treatment to generate the finest ChNFs with an average diameter of around 12 nm and the narrowest size distribution. The resultant chitin products from wet milling pretreatment exhibited much higher crystallinity and thermal stability than those from dry milling. The results suggest that pre-fibrillation of chitin via ball milling in this study plays a crucial role in the successful procuration of the ChNFs in a subsequent mechanical disintegration process, while wet ball milling, especially under mildly acidic conditions, is a promising green approach to produce efficient precursors for ChNF production.

行星球磨被用作甲壳素粉末的预处理，以制备用于甲壳质纳米纤维（ChNF）生产的前体。该研究旨在检查球磨条件（干磨，以及在中性和酸性水性介质中的湿磨）对ChNF前体的原纤化程度和所得纳米纤维特性的影响。结果表明，采用干法球磨随后进行高压均质化（HPH）不能获得纤维形态的ChNFs，但采用湿球磨法进行预处理可以成功制备出纤维形态的ChNFs。发现在弱酸性水性介质中进行球磨可以最有效地将原纤化几丁质 因此，在随后的HPH处理中有助于原纤化，以生成平均直径约为12 nm且尺寸分布最窄的最细ChNF。湿磨预处理得到的几丁质产物比干磨得到的几丁质具有更高的结晶度和热稳定性。结果表明，在这项研究中，通过球磨对几丁质进行预原纤化在后续机械崩解过程中成功获得ChNFs方面起着至关重要的作用，而湿球磨（尤其是在弱酸性条件下）是一种有希望的绿色方法。生产用于ChNF生产的有效前体。