@Article{JRM.2017.634143,
AUTHOR = {Poonam Trivedi, Jens Schaller, Jan Gustafsson, Pedro Fardim},
TITLE = {Supramolecular Design of Cellulose Hydrogel Beads},
JOURNAL = {Journal of Renewable Materials},
VOLUME = {5},
YEAR = {2017},
NUMBER = {5},
PAGES = {400--409},
URL = {http://www.techscience.com/jrm/v5n5/28807},
ISSN = {2164-6341},
ABSTRACT = {In the present study, we report the supramolecular design of cellulose-sulfonate hydrogel beads by blending water soluble sodium cellulose ethyl sulfonate (CES) with the pretreated cellulose in sodium hydroxide-ureawater solvent system at −6 °C followed by coagulation in the 2M sulfuric acid system. The increasing of CES amount from 10% to 90% had a substantial effect on the viscosity and storage (G′) and loss (G″) moduli of the blended solutions. The CES concentration up to 50% in blends led to the formation of physically stable hydrogels after coagulation in acidic medium at pH-1 and showed the retention of nearly the same CES concentration at pH-6 after continuous water washings. The increased sulfonate content also enhanced the water holding capacity and internal porosity of the beads. Both ATR-FTIR and Raman spectrometry were used for the qualitative determination of sulfonate groups and SEM-EDX was used for the quantitative estimation in dried beads. In this research, we have established a correlation between the presence of anionic charge in the polysaccharide blend and stability of the prepared hydrogel beads. Hence our research provides a systematic methodology to design functional, highly porous cellulose hydrogels having the potential to be tested further in biomedical and healthcare applications.},
DOI = {10.7569/JRM.2017.634143}
}