Hierarchical porous structures in cellulose: NMR relaxometry approach

Published Date

19 August 2016, Vol.98:237–243, doi:10.1016/j.polymer.2016.06.036

Title 

Hierarchical porous structures in cellulose: NMR relaxometry approach

• Author 

• Chao Zhang ^a,c
• Pingping Li ^a,c
• Yijin Zhang ^a,c
• Fei Lu ^a
• Weiwei Li ^a,c
• Hongliang Kang ^a
• Jun-feng Xiang ^a,,
• Yong Huang ^a,b,,
• Ruigang Liu ^a,,

• aSate Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Beijing National Laboratory of Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
• bNational Research Center for Engineering Plastics, Technical Institute of Physics & Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
• cUniversity of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, 100049, China

Received 18 February 2016. Revised 9 June 2016. Accepted 15 June 2016. Available online 16 June 2016.

Highlights

• •
  NMR relaxometry was used for characterization of the porous structure of cellulose.
• •
  The hierarchical porous structure of cellulose was not modified during sample preparation and measurement.
• •
  The distribution of the porous structure in cellulose samples was obtained by using the NMR relaxometry data.

Abstract

Hierarchical porous structures in cellulose materials are important for the dissolution, properties and applications of cellulose materials. Methods for characterizing the hierarchical porous structures in cellulose materials without changing its original state are still limited. In this work, we introduced nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxometry for characterizing the hierarchical porous structures in cotton fibers without modifying their structure during sample preparation. By this method, the changes of the porous structures in cotton samples were characterized. It was found that soaking cellulose in water and stewing cellulose in N,N-dimethylacetamide at high temperature could efficiently improve the accessibility of cellulose samples to the solvent molecules and expand the Amorphous Region in cellulose. The method provided in this work can be used for the evaluation of the hierarchical porous structures of cellulose materials without additional modified information, which is helpful to the utilization of cellulose in various fields.

Graphical abstract

Soaking cellulose in water can efficiently improve the accessibility of cellulose materials to the solvent molecules by expanding the Amorphous Region and the Inter-Microfiber Spaces in cellulose materials.

Keywords

• NMR relaxometry
• Cellulose
• Hierarchical porous structure

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• DOCX (9.2M)

• ∗ 
  Corresponding author.
• ∗∗ 
  Corresponding author.
• ∗∗∗ 
  Corresponding author. Sate Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Beijing National Laboratory of Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.

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