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Cellulose nanocrystal surface functionalization for the controlled sorption of water and organic vapours

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Abstract

The surface grafting of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) is a valuable tool to increase opportunities for their application. This work had several goals designed to improve CNC: reduction of hornification, increased re-dispersibility after CNC drying, and tuning of the surface graft to enhance the adsorption of particular molecules. To achieve this, the CNC surfaces were modified chemically with aromatic surface grafts using widely employed methods: the creation of urethane linkages, silylation and esterification. Even a low degree of grafting sufficed to increase water contact angles to as much as 96°. The analysis of water sorption isotherms showed that at high water activities, capillary condensation could be suppressed and hysteresis was decreased. This indicates that hornification was significantly suppressed. However, although the contact angles increased, the water sorption isotherms were changed only slightly because of reduced hysteresis. The grafts were not able to shield the surface from water vapour sorption. A comparison of the sorption isotherms of anisole and cyclohexane, sorbates with a similar surface area, showed that the sorption of anisole was three times higher than that of cyclohexane. The specific sorption of aromatic molecules was achieved and the most efficient methodology was the esterification of CNC with carboxylic acids containing a flexible linker between the aromatic moiety and ester bond.

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Acknowledgments

This work received support from the Mexican Scholarship Council (CONACyT) under Grant No. 213840. The authors wish to thank Monique Randrianarivo for her assistance with μ-DSC analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UMR Ingénierie Procédés Aliments, AgroParisTech, INRA, Université Paris-Saclay, 91300, Massy, France

    Etzael Espino-Pérez, Giana Almeida, Perla Relkin, Cédric Plessis & Sandra Domenek

  2. Université Grenoble Alpes, LGP2, F-38000, Grenoble, France

    Etzael Espino-Pérez, Julien Bras & Naceur Belgacem

  3. CNRS, LGP2, F-38000, Grenoble, France

    Etzael Espino-Pérez, Julien Bras & Naceur Belgacem

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  1. Etzael Espino-Pérez
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  2. Julien Bras
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  3. Giana Almeida
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  4. Perla Relkin
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Correspondence to Sandra Domenek.

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Espino-Pérez, E., Bras, J., Almeida, G. et al. Cellulose nanocrystal surface functionalization for the controlled sorption of water and organic vapours. Cellulose 23, 2955–2970 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-016-0994-y

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