Abstract
This work demonstrates a simple fabrication of cellulose nanofibers by direct electrospinning of dissolved cellulose solutions. The hard- and softwood pulps and the outer mantles of tunicate were dissolved in a mixture of trifluoroacetic acid and dichloroethane by stirring and ultrasonication to give highly viscoelastic, clear solutions. These solutions were electrospun to form continuous nanofibers made of unsubstituted cellulose, which were confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and IR spectroscopy. Statistical analysis of the SEM images of the nanofibers suggested that there are positive correlations between diameters of the nanofibers and concentration of the cellulose solution. The mean diameters of the nanofibers obtained from softwood pulp (DP of cellulose ≈ 1200) solutions were larger than those from hardwood pulp (DP of cellulose ≈ 500) at the same concentrations. This indicates that the DP of cellulose is one of the important parameters to control the diameters of the electrospun cellulose nanofibers.
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Acknowledgments
This work was financially supported by the Institut Carnot PolyNat (ANR-11-CANR-0007-01), ANR “sweetmemory” project (ANR-14-CE08-0021), and the CNRS. The authors thank Dr. B. Carré, Dr. B. Arnoul-Jarriault, and Dr. D. Lachenal for providing the soft- and hardwood pulp samples. The authors also thank Dr. Y. Nishiyama for providing the tunicate samples and Dr. C. Lancelon-Pin for SEM observation.
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Otsuka, I., Njinang, C.N. & Borsali, R. Simple fabrication of cellulose nanofibers via electrospinning of dissolving pulp and tunicate. Cellulose 24, 3281–3288 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-017-1360-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-017-1360-4