Open Access

ARTICLE

Supramolecular Design of Cellulose Hydrogel Beads

by

1 Laboratory of Fibre and Cellulose Technology, Åbo Akademi University, Tuomiokirkontori 3, 20500 Turku, Finland
2 Thuringian Institute of Textile and Plastic Research, Breitscheidstraße 97, 07407 Rudolstad, Germany
3 Department of Chemical Engineering, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200F bus 2424 B-3001 Leuven, Belgium

*Corresponding author:

Journal of Renewable Materials 2017, 5(5), 400-409. https://doi.org/10.7569/JRM.2017.634143

Abstract

In the present study, we report the supramolecular design of cellulose-sulfonate hydrogel beads by blending water soluble sodium cellulose ethyl sulfonate (CES) with the pretreated cellulose in sodium hydroxide-ureawater solvent system at −6 °C followed by coagulation in the 2M sulfuric acid system. The increasing of CES amount from 10% to 90% had a substantial effect on the viscosity and storage (G′) and loss (G″) moduli of the blended solutions. The CES concentration up to 50% in blends led to the formation of physically stable hydrogels after coagulation in acidic medium at pH-1 and showed the retention of nearly the same CES concentration at pH-6 after continuous water washings. The increased sulfonate content also enhanced the water holding capacity and internal porosity of the beads. Both ATR-FTIR and Raman spectrometry were used for the qualitative determination of sulfonate groups and SEM-EDX was used for the quantitative estimation in dried beads. In this research, we have established a correlation between the presence of anionic charge in the polysaccharide blend and stability of the prepared hydrogel beads. Hence our research provides a systematic methodology to design functional, highly porous cellulose hydrogels having the potential to be tested further in biomedical and healthcare applications.

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