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Swelling and dissolution kinetics of natural and man-made cellulose fibers in solvent power tuned ionic liquid

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Abstract

The kinetics of the dissolution and swelling of different cellulose fibers in the ionic liquid 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate ([EMIM][OAc]) was studied by varying solvent power and temperature. Natural fiber, flax, and man-made fibers, Cordenka and Lyocell-type (Ioncell) were used with one Ioncell fiber containing lignin and hemicelluloses. Through the addition of water, the solvent power was modified from very good (neat ionic liquid), to moderate (with 5 wt% water) and weak (15 wt% water). The temperature was varied to correlate the fiber dissolution rate with the solvent viscosity. All fibers were characterized by chemical composition, crystallinity, molecular weight distribution and dynamic vapor sorption. It was demonstrated that while the rate of fiber dissolution in neat ionic liquid depends on fiber accessibility and solvent viscosity, the water-induced decreased solvent power dominates the general fiber behavior. Flax appeared to be the most “sensitive” to the solvent power due to its hierarchical structure. The fastest dissolution or swelling was recorded for Ioncell and the slowest for Cordenka.

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Acknowledgments

The financial support from Business Finland (Grant No. 211599), Stora Enso Oyj and UPM-Kymmene Oyj is gratefully acknowledged. Authors wish to thank Separation Research Oy Ab and Fibertus Oy for collaboration. We thank Gabriel Monge (CEMEF, MINES ParisTech) and Leena Pitänen (Aalto University) for XRD and GPC measurement, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems, School of Chemical Engineering, Aalto University, P.O. Box 16300, 00076, Helsinki, Finland

    Feng Chen, Daisuke Sawada, Michael Hummel, Herbert Sixta & Tatiana Budtova

  2. Center for Materials Forming-CEMEF, UMR CNRS 7635, MINES ParisTech, PSL Research University, CS 10207, 06904, Sophia Antipolis, France

    Tatiana Budtova

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  1. Feng Chen
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  2. Daisuke Sawada
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  5. Tatiana Budtova
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Correspondence to Tatiana Budtova.

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Chen, F., Sawada, D., Hummel, M. et al. Swelling and dissolution kinetics of natural and man-made cellulose fibers in solvent power tuned ionic liquid. Cellulose 27, 7399–7415 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-020-03312-5

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