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Published on: June 17, 2014
Deep eutectic solvent pretreatment of cellulose and development of hydrophobic foaming material
Peiyi Li1, Miaomiao Zhou2, Xinyao Zhou2
1College of Bioresources Chemical and Materials Engineering, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Light Chemistry Engineering Education, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province 710021, China; Key Laboratory of Paper Based Functional Materials of China National Light Industry, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province 710021, China; Shaanxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Papermaking Technology and Specialty Paper Development, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province 710021, China.
Abstract:
This work aims to investigate the effects of deep eutectic solvents (DES) on the chemical and physical structure of cellulose. Choline chloride-oxalic acid and choline chloride-oxalic acid-glycerol were selected as solvents and cotton fibers was sued as raw materials to explore the difference between cotton fibers treated separately with two different DES. According to yield analysis, ternary solvents alleviated the degradation of cellulose when comparing to binary solvents, resulting in over 90 % of cellulose being obtained. Particularly, there is an esterification reaction of cellulose during treatment with the DES system, which also affects the performance of the subsequent products. Through the simple use of mechanical foaming with polyvinyl alcohol and the palm wax impregnation process, foams with a water contact angle greater than 140° and excellent mechanical properties can be obtained. The resultant foam material has 5 % linear elastic area, and prominent compressive strength providing potential use in the packaging industry in the replacement of plastic.
