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Updated: Oct 14, 2025

Towards Biomimicking Wood: Fabricated Free-standing Films of Nanocellulose, Lignin, and a Synthetic Polycation
Published on: June 17, 2014
Dissolution of cellulose into supercritical water and its dissolving state followed by structure formation from the
Ryuji Hirase1, Hitomi Miyamoto2, Yoshiaki Yuguchi3
1Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka Electro-Communication University, 18-8 Hatsu-cho, Neyagawa, Osaka 572-8530, Japan; Hyogo Prefectural Institute of Technology, 3-1-12 Yukihira-cho, Suma, Kobe, Hyogo 654-0037, Japan.
Abstract:
Cellulose was treated with supercritical water at 668 K and 25 MPa for 0.04 s in this study. The cellulose/water system was transparent at room temperature for a while after supercritical water treatment before a precipitate gradually appeared over several hours. The precipitation process was monitored by synchrotron X-ray scattering. The scattering functions of fractal systems and flat-like structures were utilized to explain the experimentally observed small-angle scattering profiles. Immediately after supercritical water treatment, the cellulose appeared to dissolve with a fractal dimension D of approximately 1, indicating that the cellulose molecules were rigid, followed by aggregation into a 5-nm-thick flat-like structure. The flat-like structure was determined to be similar to the molecular sheets observed during the early stages of precipitation in the cellulose/aqueous sodium hydroxide and cellulose/aqueous lithium hydroxide/urea systems. Resultant regenerated cellulose had high crystallinity, large crystal size, and a low degree of polymerization.
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