The emergence of ionic conductive elastomers (ICE) is significant for various electric applications. However, existing ICEs mainly originate from tedious preparations, nonrenewable starting materials, suffer from limited functions, and especially...

Novel fully polymeric conductive hydrogel was developed based on liquid metal nanoparticles (LMNPs) initiated and cross-linked poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) backbone with poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):sulfonated bacterial cellulose nanofiber (PEDOT:BCNF) nanomaterials as the conductive...

Wet-storage is the most common way to maintain sugarcane bagasse in the paper-making industry, although there were few studies on the structural alteration of lignins caused by a wetstorage system. Lignin preparations isolated from wet-stored bagasse in a laboratory simulated wet storage system, corresponding pulps, and spent liquors of soda-oxygen pulping were characterized by various analytical techniques, including elemental analysis (EA), gel permeation chromatography (GPC), and heteronuclear singlequantum coherence (HSQC) NMR spectroscopy. The characteristics of these lignins were compared with those of lignin preparations isolated from fresh sugarcane bagasse samples. Eleven percent decrease of p-coumarate (p-CA) in the lignins from wetstored raw materials were observed. p-Coumarate and tricin were completely removed during the pulping process. Results from this study suggested that syringyl units were more easily degraded and dissolved under low temperature soda-oxygen pulping conditions. Wet-storage for a certain period of time (14 days) did not modify lignin structure or degrade cellulose significantly.

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Cellulose acetate is one of the oldest synthetic thermoplastic polymers and has various applications including usage as films, fibers, and membrane products. Traditionally, cellulose acetate is prepared by reacting cellulose with acetic anhydride in acetic acid using sulfuric acid as a catalyst. This process suffers from extensive depolymerization of the cellulose molecules and corrosion of the equipment from the use of the acidic solvent and catalyst. Herein we present an acid-free cellulose acetylation process using vinyl acetate as both the reactant and reaction medium and 1-ethyl-3methylimidazolium acetate as the catalyst. The obtained cellulose acetate was confirmed by FTIR, NMR, and XRD studies. Additionally, the reaction kinetics, mechanism of the process, and properties of the obtained cellulose acetate were studied. Cellulose triacetate was obtained by our process within 2 h at 90 °C. The reaction kinetics was described with the classical pseudo-first-order rate expression of heterogeneous cellulose acetylation. The reaction mechanism was shown to be a peel-off mechanism similar to that of cellulose acetylation by the traditional acetic acid process. The molecular weight of the cellulose acetate produced by this new process was significantly higher than that from the traditional acetic acid process because of the absence of strong acids, which can depolymerize cellulose. In summary, we describe a new acid-free process to produce cellulose acetate that limits cellulose depolymerization and avoids the use of corrosive chemicals.