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

Chemical modification of lignins: Towards biobased polymers

Organic Carbonates as Solvents in Synthesis and Catalysis

Advances in cellulose ester performance and application

Towards lignin-based functional materials in a sustainable world

Homogeneous esterification of cellulose with saturated fatty acids (n-octanoic to n-octadecanoic) was accomplished with acetic anhydride co-reactant in lithium chloride/N,N-dimethylacetamide (LiCl/DMAc) medium. Cellulose mixed triesters (CMT) were obtained after 5 h at 130°C with an average of 2.2 acetyl groups and 0.8 fatty substituents per anhydroglucose unit. A mixed acetic-fatty anhydride, formed in situ, accounts for the grafting of the fatty moiety. The purified products were characterized and compared to the analogous cellulose simple fatty triesters (CST) that were synthesized from fatty acid chlorides in pyridine medium. Dynamic contact angle with water, glass transition, and storage moduli were correlated with the length of the fatty substituents. The CMT proved to be highly hydrophobic and more mechanically resistant than the CST.

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Cellulose esterification with fatty acids and acetic anhydride in lithium chloride/N,N-dimethylacetamide medium

Equations for transforming the results of elemental analysis (EA) into degree of substitution (DS) values for aliphatic cellulose esters were developed. The equations allow to determine the DS of cellulose derivatives bearing not only one but also two different acyl substituents. Error transmission studies revealed that the accuracy of the DS-values for a pure sample depends on both the number of carbon atoms in the substituents and on the uncertainty of the EA, especially from the hydrogen content. This method provides accurate DS-values (± 0.10 in most cases) if H-content determinations are within ± 0.1%

Determination of the degree of substitution (DS) of mixed cellulose esters by elemental analysis

Solvent-free wood esterification with fatty acid chlorides

Properties of wood esterified by fatty-acid chlorides

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02079794/document

Marie-Elisabeth Borredon

Papers

Cellulose esterification with fatty acids and acetic anhydride in lithium chloride/N,N-dimethylacetamide medium

Determination of the degree of substitution (DS) of mixed cellulose esters by elemental analysis

Solvent-free wood esterification with fatty acid chlorides

Properties of wood esterified by fatty-acid chlorides

Solvent-free fatty acylation of cellulose and lignocellulosic wastes. Part 2: reactions with fatty acids