As the most important skeletal component in plants, the polysaccharide cellulose is an almost inexhaustible polymeric raw material with fascinating structure and properties. Formed by the repeated connection of D-glucose building blocks, the highly functionalized, linear stiff-chain homopolymer is characterized by its hydrophilicity, chirality, biodegradability, broad chemical modifying capacity, and its formation of versatile semicrystalline fiber morphologies. In view of the considerable increase in interdisciplinary cellulose research and product development over the past decade worldwide, this paper assembles the current knowledge in the structure and chemistry of cellulose, and in the development of innovative cellulose esters and ethers for coatings, films, membranes, building materials, drilling techniques, pharmaceuticals, and foodstuffs. New frontiers, including environmentally friendly cellulose fiber technologies, bacterial cellulose biomaterials, and in-vitro syntheses of cellulose are highlighted together with future aims, strategies, and perspectives of cellulose research and its applications.

Cellulose: Fascinating Biopolymer and Sustainable Raw Material

https://cyberleninka.org/article/n/1316165.pdf

Nanocellulose in biomedicine: Current status and future prospect

Electrospinning of silk fibroin nanofibers and its effect on the adhesion and spreading of normal human keratinocytes and fibroblasts in vitro

Tethered polymer chains refers to macromolecular chains that are attached into microstructures by their ends. Highly branched polymers, polymer micelles and end-grafted chains on surfaces are a few examples. This review brings out the common features of these seemingly widely disparate microstructures. Tethering can be reversible or irreversible and is frequently sufficiently dense that the chains are crowded. Densely tethered chains stretch to alleviate the interactions caused by crowding. They thus exhibit deformed configurations at equilibrium. These effects of tethering on the structure of the polymer chains are reflected in distinctive behavior and properties of microstructures containing tethered chains.

Tethered chains in polymer microstructures

Bacterial cellulose as a potential scaffold for tissue engineering of cartilage

Tissue biocompatibility of cellulose and its derivatives was examined in two in vivo tests, one for absorbance by living tissue and one for foreign body reaction. The samples examined were regenerated celluloses and cellulose derivatives: methyl cellulose, ethyl cellulose, aminoethyl cellulose, hydroxyethyl cellulose, and cellulosic polyion complexes. The in vivo absorbance by living tissue was found to depend on the degree of crystallinity and the chemical structure of the sample. The foreign body reaction was relatively mild for all the samples examined, showing that cellulose can be converted to biocompatible materials by physical and/or chemical transformation.

Tissue biocompatibility of cellulose and its derivatives.

The solubility behavior of O-methyl cellulose (MC) in water was investigated in terms of the distribution of substituents along the cellulose chain as well as in the anhydroglucose (AHG) units. For this purpose, three different types of MC samples were prepared by respective homogeneous reaction, i.e.. (i) methylation of cellulose acetate (CA) prepared from cellulose triacetate (CTA), followed by deacetylation, (ii) methylation of CA prepared by direct acetylation of cellulose in a 10% LiCl–dimethylacetamide (DMAc) solution, followed by deacetylation, and (iii) methylation of cellulose with dimethyl sulfate in a 10% LiCl–DMAc solution. Their water solubility was compared with that of MC samples prepared by the alkali cellulose process, i.e., by the heterogeneous reaction, including commercial products. It was found that water-soluble MC samples prepared by the alkali cellulose process exhibit a thermally-reversible sol-gel transition in aqueous solution, but all of the MC samples preapred homogeneous reactions show a normal phase separation in aqueous solution. This result gives a direct support for the consideration that the highly substituted glucose sequences present in the commercial MC act as “crosslinking loci” on warming. The distribution of substituents in the AHG units was estimated by 13C-NMR method. The results on the water solubility of MC were also discussed in terms of the distribution of substituents in the AHG units.

Relationship between distribution of substituents and water solubility of O‐methyl cellulose

Des resultats experimentaux et theoriques recents sur la copolymerisation radicalaire sont discutes en vue d'une meilleure comprehension des reactions de propagation et de transfert de chaine. Les resultats experimentaux suggerent l'existence de 2 types d'effet du motif preterminal, un effet implicite se manifestant seulement dans les constantes de vitesse de propagation et de transfert de chaine et un effet explicite visible dans ces constantes et les rapports de reactivite. L'origine de ces 2 effets est discutee; un modele phenomenologique propose est en accord avec les resultats experimentaux de l'effet implicite

Penultimate-unit effects in free-radical copolymerization

Etude theorique permettant de prevoir, de facon semi-quantitative, la vitesse de propagation; application au systeme ST/MMA

Free‐radical copolymerization, 6. New interpretation for the propagation rate versus composition curve

Spectres RMN du carbone 13 de trityle cellulose, tosyle cellulose, cellulose S-methyl xanthate et cellulose formiate dans DMSO-d 6 analyses a 50,4 MHz

Hiroshi Inagaki

Papers

Tissue biocompatibility of cellulose and its derivatives.

Relationship between distribution of substituents and water solubility of O‐methyl cellulose

Penultimate-unit effects in free-radical copolymerization

Free‐radical copolymerization, 6. New interpretation for the propagation rate versus composition curve

13C‐NMR spectral studies on the distribution of substituents in some cellulose derivatives