Regeneration of cellulose dissolved in ionic liquid using laser-heated melt-electrospinning

Huaizhong Xu; Tilman Bronner; Masaki Yamamoto; Hideki Yamane

doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.08.062

Regeneration of cellulose dissolved in ionic liquid using laser-heated melt-electrospinning

Carbohydr Polym. 2018 Dec 1:201:182-188. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.08.062. Epub 2018 Aug 18.

Authors

Huaizhong Xu¹, Tilman Bronner², Masaki Yamamoto³, Hideki Yamane⁴

Affiliations

¹ Dept. of Biobased Materials Science, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto, 606-8585, Japan. Electronic address: xhz2008@126.com.
² Dept. of Biobased Materials Science, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto, 606-8585, Japan; Institut für Textiltechnik (ITA), RWTH Aachen University, Otto-Blumenthal-Str. 1, Aachen, Germany. Electronic address: tilman.bronner@rwth-aachen.de.
³ Textile Research Institute of Gunma, Kiryu, 376-0011, Japan. Electronic address: myamamoto@kit.ac.jp.
⁴ Dept. of Biobased Materials Science, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto, 606-8585, Japan. Electronic address: hyamane@kit.ac.jp.

PMID: 30241809
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.08.062

Abstract

A "green" and highly efficient route was proposed to fabricate ultrafine cellulose fibers. The processing steps include cellulose dissolution, gel preparation, melt-electrospinning and fiber coagulation. High DP cellulose can be easily dissolved in 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride (BmimCl) when the blend was stirred at 110 °C for 2 h. The maximum solubility can reach up to 16.7 wt%. A homogeneous ternary cellulose/BmimCl/ethanol or cellulose/BmimCl/water gel was made by the methods of crystallization and casting for the purpose of fixing the shape of the cellulose/BmimCl solution. After laser-heating and electrospinning, multiple jets were ejected from the gel tip and then frozen on a super cold target. Pure cellulose fibers without beads and blocks were achieved after coagulation. The results of WAXD and FTIR indicated that the regenerated cellulose fibers were amorphous and chemically stable. More importantly, this approach can be applied to other polysaccharides for the preparation of ultrafine fibers.

Keywords: Cellulose; Gelation; Ionic liquid; Melt-electrospinning.