<br/>Traditionally it has been accepted that the cell walls are made up of microfibrils which are semi-crystalline. However, in 2015, based on several pieces of Raman evidence, we reported (Agarwal et al. 2015, Cellulose, accepted) that the fibrils were significantly disordered and ~ 50% water accessible; and a new model of native cellulose structure was proposed. In addition, a new term “Degree Of Lateral Order (DOLO)” was coined to interpret changes in XRD FWHM of wood cellulose materials. DOLO was invoked to interpret both the broadened nature of the diffractograms of the materials and absence of crystallinity increase upon pulp and pulp-CNC production. An important characteristic of high crystalline celluloses was that several low frequency bands were present in their Raman spectra. Such bands can be used to investigate consolidation, hornification, and crystallization of cellulose- molecules and microfibrils. In the present study, many of these analytical approaches are used to investigate how native structure of wood cellulose is transformed upon thermal and hydrothermal treatments. The topic has important implications for industrial processing of wood, biofuels research, pulping, and production of pulp-CNCs.

Evolution of wood-cellulose native structure upon thermal and hydrothermal treatments

251st National Meeting (2016)

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