Humidity Response of Cellulose Thin Films

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A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2022-03-14

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en

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1148–1157

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Biomacromolecules, Volume 23, issue 3

Abstract

Cellulose-water interactions are crucial to understand biological processes as well as to develop tailor made cellulose-based products. However, the main challenge to study these interactions is the diversity of natural cellulose fibers and alterations in their supramolecular structure. Here, we study the humidity response of different, well-defined, ultrathin cellulose films as a function of industrially relevant treatments using different techniques. As treatments, drying at elevated temperature, swelling, and swelling followed by drying at elevated temperatures were chosen. The cellulose films were prepared by spin coating a soluble cellulose derivative, trimethylsilyl cellulose, onto solid substrates followed by conversion to cellulose by HCl vapor. For the highest investigated humidity levels (97%), the layer thickness increased by ca. 40% corresponding to the incorporation of 3.6 molecules of water per anhydroglucose unit (AGU), independent of the cellulose source used. The aforementioned treatments affected this ratio significantly with drying being the most notable procedure (2.0 and 2.6 molecules per AGU). The alterations were investigated in real time with X-ray reflectivity and quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation, equipped with a humidity module to obtain information about changes in the thickness, roughness, and electron density of the films and qualitatively confirmed using grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering measurements using synchrotron irradiation.

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Funding Information: The work was supported by the FFG project Cello-H0-4papers and the COST Action FP1205. Elettra Sincrotrone is acknowledged for providing synchrotron radiation at the Austrian SAXS beamline. The authors thank Minna Hakalahti (VTT) and Katrin Unger (TU Graz) for technical support. T.T. and E.K. acknowledge the support by FinnCERES Bioeconomy cluster. 2 Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.

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Reishofer , D , Resel , R , Sattelkow , J , Fischer , W J , Niegelhell , K , Mohan , T , Kleinschek , K S , Amenitsch , H , Plank , H , Tammelin , T , Kontturi , E & Spirk , S 2022 , ' Humidity Response of Cellulose Thin Films ' , Biomacromolecules , vol. 23 , no. 3 , pp. 1148–1157 . https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.biomac.1c01446