Issue 6, 2024

Dispersing uncharged cellulose nanocrystals through a precipitation surface modification route using oligosaccharides

Abstract

The trend to replace petrochemical materials with sustainable alternatives has increased interest in plant-based particles like cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs). A remarkably simple and effective method for producing uncharged CNCs involves solid-state hydrolysis using hydrochloric acid gas (HCl(g)). While this chemistry results in HCl(g)-CNCs produced at very high yields (>97%), they cannot be easily dispersed as individual nanoparticles. Here, the potential of using oligosaccharide surface modifiers as dispersing agents for HCl(g)-CNCs to yield isolated and colloidally stable CNCs is investigated. Importantly, the cello-oligosaccharide surface modifiers used were externally-produced and had very low charge. By increasing the amount of oligosaccharide added relative to HCl(g)-CNCs, it was possible to proportionally increase the degree to which the CNC surface was modified. This surface modification resulted in ubiquitous improvements to the dispersibility of HCl(g)-CNCs. We also applied this surface modification to uncharged CNCs produced using aqueous hydrochloric acid (i.e., HCl(aq)-CNCs) and observed marked improvements to their colloidal stability in aqueous media that did not trend with increasing charge but rather with oligosaccharide content. Overall, this study indicates the applicability of an easily scalable modification route that opens the door for expanded CNC functionality and tailoring colloidal stability of these versatile materials.

Graphical abstract: Dispersing uncharged cellulose nanocrystals through a precipitation surface modification route using oligosaccharides

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
30 10月 2023
Accepted
26 1月 2024
First published
30 1月 2024
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Mater. Adv., 2024,5, 2260-2270

Dispersing uncharged cellulose nanocrystals through a precipitation surface modification route using oligosaccharides

M. G. Roberts, E. Niinivaara, T. Pääkkönen, C. W. King, E. Kontturi and E. D. Cranston, Mater. Adv., 2024, 5, 2260 DOI: 10.1039/D3MA00936J

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements