Hairy Nanocellulose Hydrogels

Author:

Andreyo, Luke

Area of Honors:

Chemical Engineering

Degree:

Bachelor of Science

Document Type:

Thesis

Thesis Supervisors:

Amir Sheikhi, Thesis Supervisor
Ali Borhan, Thesis Honors Advisor

Keywords:

Nanocellulose
Hydrogel
Crosslink
AHCNC

Abstract:

Cellulose is one of the most abundant biopolymers on Earth, and interest in its nanostructured forms has caused research on the material to increase drastically over the last few decades. Nanocelluloses have many attractive properties and the potential to be used in industries that range from water treatment to chemical catalysis. One subset of research on nanocellulose involves converting it to anionic hairy nanocellulose (AHCNC) through a two-step oxidation. The oxidation creates nanocrystals that are sandwiched in between hairy amorphous regions. The amorphous regions are functionalized with carboxylate groups, which is necessary for tuning nanocellulose for processes like adsorption. This paper will focus on converting AHCNC to methacrylated-AHCNC (M-AHCNC) with methacrylic anhydride. Through methacrylation, AHCNC becomes capable of creating self-assembled networks. Previously, AHCNC has been physically crosslinked using Cu2+ ions, but this research will investigate chemically crosslinking AHCNC by converting it to M-AHCNC, and then utilizing UV-light and lithium phenyl-2,4,6-trimethylbenzoylphosphinate. Crosslinking of AHCNC could enable facile tuning of the rheological properties of nanocellulose-only hydrogels. Changing the rheological properties of nanocellulose could make it suitable to be used as a renewable 3D printed adsorbent. This research will prove the synthesis of M-AHCNC and crosslinked M-AHCNC through characterizations, which will allow future research on the mechanical properties of crosslinked M-AHCNC to be performed.