Dissolution and regeneration of wood saccharides in ionic liquids

Other conference contribution, 2010

Cellulose is one of the most important sources of renewable biomaterials, but the number of solvents that are capable of dissolving cellulose is still today very limited. Among non-derivatizing solvents, there are even fewer alternatives. Imidazolium based ionic liquids make up a well studied group of solvents for cellulose that have many advantages such as being considered environmentally friendly, and relatively easy to recycle. Here a model substance of native cellulose, namely oligomeric cellulose with DP = 4.33 is used to study the interactions between cellulose and ionic liquid in solution using 1H NMR spectroscopy. It can be concluded that the oligocellulose is a suitable model substance, with a higher resemblance to polymeric cellulose than for example cellobiose that have previously been used but with maintained possibilities to give high resolution in 1H NMR spectres.