Cellulose aliphatic esters (CEs) are important cellulose derivatives that have been widely used in many fields like plastics, textile, membrane, etc. However, long pretreatment and reaction time were required for preparation of CEs by traditional methods. Herein, a very efficient method was developed to synthesize CEs rapidly in a heterogeneous system within 5 min. This method involved the transesterification of cellulose with vinyl esters (from C4 to C14) in dimethylsulfoxide under the catalysis of aqueous NaOH. For better understanding this new reaction system, factors like water content, the amount of catalyst, reaction temperature and the molar ratio of vinyl acetate to anhydroglucose unit were explored. Results obtained from FT-IR, 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopies confirmed that CEs could be synthesized at 100 �C within 5 min. High water content or excessive amount of NaOH disfavored the synthesis of CEs. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and derivative thermogravimetric analysis (DTG) showed that CEs had higher thermal stability than cellulose. This work provides a new and highly efficient method to synthesize various CEs.

Rapid synthesis of cellulose aliphatic esters by  transesterification

247th National Meeting (2014)

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