Cellulose dissolution in an alkali based solvent: influence of additives and pretreatments

The distinction between thermodynamic and kinetics in cellulose dissolution is seldom considered in the literature. Therefore, herein an attempt to discuss this topic and illustrate our hypotheses on the basis of simple experiments was made. It is well-known that cellulose can be dissolved in a aqueous sodium hydroxide (NaOH/H2O) solvent at low temperature but it is here shown that such an alkaline solvent can be considerably improved regarding solubility, stability and rheological properties as a whole if different additives (salts and amphiphilic molecules) are used in the dissolution stage. This work probes new aqueous routes to dissolve cellulose, thereby improving the potential to commercially dissolve cellulose in an inexpensive and environmentally friendly manner.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kihlman,Martin, Medronho,Bruno F., Romano,Anabela L., GermgÅrd,Ulf, Lindman,Bjorn
Format: Digital revista
Language:English
Published: Sociedade Brasileira de Química 2013
Online Access:http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0103-50532013000200017
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