Tailoring the ternary synergistic effect of TBAH/H2O/DMSO for room-temperature, ultrafast cellulose dissolution

Jianan Zhu; Hao Sun; Jianrong Mao; Yuan Zou; Fulin Yang; Yunwu Zheng; Can Liu; Xu Lin; Defa Hou; Mingbo Yang

doi:10.1039/D5GC06045A

Tailoring the ternary synergistic effect of TBAH/H₂O/DMSO for room-temperature, ultrafast cellulose dissolution

Jianan Zhu,^a Hao Sun,*^a Jianrong Mao,^a Yuan Zou,^a Fulin Yang,^a Yunwu Zheng,

^a Can Liu,

^a Xu Lin,^a Defa Hou

*^a and Mingbo Yang

*^b

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a National Joint Engineering Research Center for Highly-Efficient Utilization Technology of Forestry Resource, Yunnan Provincial Key Laboratory of Wood and Bamboo Biomass Materials, Southwest Forestry University, Kunming 650224, P. R. China
E-mail: houdefa001@163.com, sunhao@swfu.edu.cn

^b College of Polymer Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, P. R. China
E-mail: yangmb@scu.edu.cn

Abstract

Effective dissolution is crucial for unlocking the extensive application potential of cellulose. Herein, we developed a ternary tetrabutylammonium hydroxide/water/dimethyl sulfoxide (TBAH/H₂O/DMSO) solvent for efficient dissolution of cellulose. In this solvent, hydroxide anions (OH⁻) from TBAH/H₂O act as the primary agent for cleaving hydrogen bonds among cellulose chains, while DMSO mitigates the hydration of OH⁻ and enhances the stability of the cellulose solution. The optimized system (TBAH/H₂O/DMSO = 25/25/50, w/w/w) rapidly dissolved 4 wt% of microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) at room temperature within 30 seconds. Remarkably, the presented solvent demonstrated broad applicability in dissolving cellulose with different degrees of polymerization ( Image ID:d5gc06045a-t1.gif ), which can dissolve 16.2 wt% of MCC ( Image ID:d5gc06045a-t2.gif = 238) and 5.9 wt% of cotton pulp ( Image ID:d5gc06045a-t3.gif = 1116) within 20 min. This efficient and versatile dissolution strategy provides a promising platform for the valorization of cellulose in advanced materials and sustainable technologies.