Abstract
The effects of different solvents on the structure of
microcrystalline and nanofibrillated cellulose (MCC, NFC)
were studied using small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS).
MCC was immersed in water, ethanol, and acetone, and NFC
was immersed only in water and ethanol, but studied also
in the form of foam-like water-NFC-gel in wet, air-dried
and re-wet states. The solvent affected the average chord
length, which reveals the typical length scale of the
structure of the sample: 2.4 ± 0.1 nm was obtained for
MCC-water, 2.5 ± 0.1 nm for re-wet NFC-gel, 1.6 ± 0.1 nm
for MCC-ethanol, 1.2 ± 0.1 nm for NFC-ethanol, and 1.3 ±
0.1 nm for MCC-acetone. The specific surface of cellulose
increased strongly when MCC and NFC were immersed in the
solvents compared to dry cellulose. The specific surface
of cellulose was determined to be larger for NFC-water
than MCC-water, and slightly larger for dry NFC powder
than for dry MCC, which can be explained by the fact that
the width of cellulose crystallites perpendicular to the
cellulose chain direction was slightly larger in MCC than
in NFC on the basis of wide-angle x-ray scattering
results.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 012030 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Journal of Physics: Conference Series |
| Volume | 247 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2010 |
| MoE publication type | A4 Article in a conference publication |
| Event | XIV International Conference on Small-Angle Scattering, SAS09 - Oxford, United Kingdom Duration: 13 Sept 2009 → 18 Sept 2009 |