A review on cotton gin trash: Sustainable commodity for material fabrication

Cotton gin trash (CGT), the waste generated from cotton ginning is a low-cost and abundant source of lignocellulosic material. Effective valorisation of CGT is beneficial from both economical and environmental perspectives. Earlier investigations and reviews on CGT were mostly based on the ethanol and bioenergy production, and soil amendment properties of CGT. However, due to the low yield in ethanol preparation, the low heating value of CGT in energy production and reported critical issues in soil amendment, CGT yet remains as an underutilised material. However, the increasing number of studies in material science domain showed encouraging prospects of CGT. This includes using CGT as a composite filler, preparing transparent plastic by combining with polymer, adsorbing dye from wastewater, and extracting micro and nanocrystalline cellulose for a potential application. Nevertheless, currently, there is no review available dedicated to the material fabrication viewpoint of CGT. Therefore, this review addresses the current studies of CGT on material production, along with CGT structure and composition. This study also discusses the rationale of using CGT as a sustainable resource in the cleaner production of materials and explores the opportunities for future research.