Cellulose is an abundant renewable polymer ideal for environmentally friendly materials design. After dissolution of cellulose derived from wood pulps, it is possible to recrystallize the cellulose polymers into materials with similar properties as traditional plastic materials. From this starting point the material industry can move from using non-renewable oil-based raw materials into more sustainable product development. Depending on the recrystallisation process the material properties will slightly vary. For cellulose dissolved in cold aqueous alkali solution with urea as additive, one way to affect the properties is to differ the regeneration liquid that coagulates the polymer solution into a solid material. The polarity of a coagulant will affect the hydrophobic stacking in the regeneration step, which could in turn affect the crystallinity of the resulting solid film. In this work aqueous alkaline cellulose solutions were ruler cast and regenerated in different organic coagulants; either alcohols or esters. Thereafter the films were washed in Milli-Q water and dried under controlled temperature and vacuum conditions using a Rapid Köthen sheet former. To investigate the crystallinity of the films, they were analyzed by solid state NMR, WAXS and SAXS. The results of these analyzes were then used to qualitatively interpret the results of physical properties of the films; tensile strength, elongation, moisture content, contact angle and density.

Influence of regeneration liquid polarity on different material properties of dried cellulose II films

2019 Spring National Meeting

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