Highly porous regenerated cellulose hydrogel and aerogel prepared from hydrothermal synthesized cellulose carbamate

Sinyee Gan; Sarani Zakaria; Chin Hua Chia; Ruey Shan Chen; Amanda V Ellis; Hatika Kaco

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173743

Highly porous regenerated cellulose hydrogel and aerogel prepared from hydrothermal synthesized cellulose carbamate

PLoS One. 2017 Mar 15;12(3):e0173743. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0173743. eCollection 2017.

Authors

Sinyee Gan¹, Sarani Zakaria¹, Chin Hua Chia¹, Ruey Shan Chen¹, Amanda V Ellis², Hatika Kaco¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Applied Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia.
² Department of Chemical Engineering, Melbourne University, Parkville, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.

Abstract

Here, a stable derivative of cellulose, called cellulose carbamate (CC), was produced from Kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus) core pulp (KCP) and urea with the aid of a hydrothermal method. Further investigation was carried out for the amount of nitrogen yielded in CC as different urea concentrations were applied to react with cellulose. The effect of nitrogen concentration of CC on its solubility in a urea-alkaline system was also studied. Regenerated cellulose products (hydrogels and aerogels) were fabricated through the rapid dissolution of CC in a urea-alkaline system. The morphology of the regenerated cellulose products was viewed under Field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). The transformation of allomorphs in regenerated cellulose products was examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The transparency of regenerated cellulose products was determined by Ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometer. The degree of swelling (DS) of regenerated cellulose products was also evaluated. This investigation provides a simple and efficient procedure of CC determination which is useful in producing regenerated CC products.

MeSH terms

Carbamates / chemistry*
Cellulose / chemistry*
Hydrogels / chemistry*
Microscopy, Electron, Scanning
Porosity
Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet
Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared
X-Ray Diffraction

Substances

Carbamates
Hydrogels
Cellulose

Grants and funding

The authors thank Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) for the financial support via the research Project Grants AP-2015-005, DIP-2016-004, LRGS/TD/2012/USM-UKM/PT/04 and the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia for MyBrain15-MyMaster Scholarship. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.