Nowadays, numerous solvents and strategies have been developed to dissolve cellulose.  Efforts have been focused on developing greener, cheaper solvents and, facile approaches for cellulose dissolution. In this study, we report on the use of acetic acid at low concentration as a precatalyst to activate hydrogen bonds of cellulose and subsequently promote cellulose dissolution. Unlike derivatizing solvents (e.g. cellulose acetate as an unstable intermediate), no cellulose acetylation occurs during the dissolution and acetic acid can be easily removed by regeneration in DI water. The enhancement in the dissolution of acetic-acid activated cotton cellulose fibers in either LiCl/DMAc or ionic liquid (BmimCl) is linked to the significant reduction in viscosity of cellulose/solvents solution. In addition, the impact of acetic-acid precatalysis on the cellulose was presumably universal for various solvent systems as long as the solvent contains dissociated cations and anions because it is related to the combined dissociation capability (pKa) of ions present in acetic acid and solvent molecules. Therefore, the investigation of underlying mechanism of acetic acid as a precatalyst may open a new opportunities for developing new solvents and approaches to dissolve cellulose.

Acetic acid as a precatalyst to promote cellulose dissolution

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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