Cellulose has many industrial applications and is the most used biopolymer in the world. The estimated amount of cellulose and derivatives used each year, exceed 75 million tons[1]. Many important cellulose applications involve, at some stage, dissolution and, for different reasons, this task is normally complicated. The development of cheaper, environmentally and human friendly alternatives, without toxic compounds, to the solvents used nowadays is thus of great interest in the industrial circle.
In this work, we have developed new promising alkali based solvents, showing good dissolution ability of cellulose with reasonably high molecular weight. The addition of amphiphilic molecules (such as urea and surfactants) to the alkali based cellulose solutions results on an increase of the solubility of cellulose in solution and also in a decrease of the viscosity of the system [2,3]. Additionally, these amphiphilic additives also prevent time dependent gelation of the solution.
These cellulose solutions are a very promissory for fiber spinning (e.g. textile applications). Finally, cellulose regeneration under the form of transparent films was achieved from cellulose solutions using simple coagulations systems such as water, ethanol or acidic solutions.
[1] Kirk-Othmer, Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology. 5th Edition ed.; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: 2004; Vol. 5.
[2] Lindman B, Karlström G, Stigsson L. J. Mol. Liq. 2010, 156, 76-81.
[3] Medronho B, Romano A, Miguel MG, Stigsson L, Lindman B. Cellulose 2012, 19, 581-587.
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