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Origin of hydrophilicity of cellulose hydrogel from aqueous LiOH/urea solvent coagulated with alkyl alcohols

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Abstract

Surface and structural properties of cellulose hydrogel prepared from LiOH/urea solvent with alcoholic coagulation were examined. As coagulants, alcohols from methanol to butanol were employed. Alcohol with high water miscibility (MeOH, EtOH, 1-PrOH, 2-PrOH, and t-BuOH) gave a nano-porous structure consisting of a fibrous network of cellulose, while alcohol with low water miscibility (1-BuOH, 2-BuOH, i-BuOH) showed aggregation of a fibrous structure because of large shrinkage during the coagulation process. Congo red adsorption measurement showed that an increase in the carbon number of alcohol brought about a less hydrophobic surface. This is likely to occur because the alkali/urea/cellulose complex was formed during the coagulation process in the case of ethanol, propanol, and butanol, leading to a higher crystalline content of cellulose II, the surface of which is thought to be highly hydrophilic.

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Acknowledgments

This study was partly supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (no. 23580226) and a Grant-in-Aid for JSPS fellows (no. 24–7759). N.I. acknowledges financial support from the JSPS Research Fellowship for Young Scientists. The authors thank Japan Synchrotron Research Institute (JASRI) for provision of beam time at BL40B2 in SPring-8.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomaterials Science, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Yayoi 1-1-1, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8657, Japan

    Noriyuki Isobe, Satoshi Kimura, Masahisa Wada & Shigenori Kuga

  2. Department of Plant and Environmental New Resources, College of Life Sciences, Kyung Hee University, 1 Seocheon-dong, Giheung-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do, 446-701, Republic of Korea

    Satoshi Kimura & Masahisa Wada

  3. Centre de Recherches sur les Macromolecules Vegetales (Affiliated with Joseph Fourier University of Grenoble), C.N.R.S., B.P. 53, 38401, Grenoble Cedex 9, France

    Yoshiharu Nishiyama

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  1. Noriyuki Isobe
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  2. Yoshiharu Nishiyama
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  3. Satoshi Kimura
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  4. Masahisa Wada
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  5. Shigenori Kuga
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Correspondence to Noriyuki Isobe.

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Isobe, N., Nishiyama, Y., Kimura, S. et al. Origin of hydrophilicity of cellulose hydrogel from aqueous LiOH/urea solvent coagulated with alkyl alcohols. Cellulose 21, 1043–1050 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-013-0080-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-013-0080-7

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