In recent years, there has been a significant amount of research invested in designing ionic liquids for the dissolution of cellulose. In general, all of the ionic liquids that can be used to dissolve cellulose at useful concentrations are very hydrophilic having almost unlimited solubility in solvents such as water or methanol. Esterification of cellulose dissolved in a hydrophilic ionic liquid can often lead to a hydrophobic cellulose ester, particularly in the case of linear and branched long chain cellulose triesters. Consequentially, the solubility of the hydrophobic cellulose derivative in the hydrophilic reaction media can be greatly reduced thereby reducing the range of derivatives that can be prepared. In this account, we demonstrate that the solubility of hydrophobic cellulose triesters in the reaction media can be greatly expanded by carefully choosing ionic liquid-cosolvents mixtures thus expanding our ability to prepare linear and branched long chain cellulose triesters. Furthermore, we also demonstrate that these cellulose triesters can be utilized as structuring agents.

Synthesis of hydrophobic cellulose triesters from cellulose dissolved in a hydrophilic ionic liquid

245th National Meeting (2013)

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