Impact of ring-opening chemistry on the local chain mobility of arabinoxylan
Journal article, 2026
Periodate oxidation and borohydride reduction has been put forward as a modification that increases the flexibility of polysaccharide chains, thereby lowering the glass transition temperature. To investigate whether the reaction is able to increase the chain mobility of a branched polysaccharide such as arabinoxylan (AX), ring-opened dialdehyde AX (DAX), and dialcohol AX (DiolAX) were studied with solid-state NMR techniques. For materials equilibrated at 53% relative humidity, it was found that DiolAX exhibits increased chain mobility, observed as a two- and three-fold decrease in the proton relaxation time in the rotating frame (T1ρH), compared to AX and DAX. From measurements of the proton dipolar linewidth, the narrowest linewidth, thus highest mobility, was observed at the C5/ring-opened C2-C3 region of DiolAX. This is expected largely from an increase in mobility of the ring-opened C2-C3 environments. When the materials were equilibrated at <10% RH, the dynamics became slower and more similar across AX, DAX and DiolAX.
Chain mobility
Solid-state NMR
Hemicellulose
Polymer dynamics
Wheat bran
Author
Ratchawit Janewithayapun
FibRe-Center for Lignocellulose-based Thermoplastics
Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry
Hampus Karlsson
University of Milan
FibRe-Center for Lignocellulose-based Thermoplastics
Wallenberg Wood Science Center (WWSC)
Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry
Mikael S. Hedenqvist
FibRe-Center for Lignocellulose-based Thermoplastics
Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)
Wallenberg Wood Science Center (WWSC)
Dennis Wilkens Juhl
Aarhus University
Thomas Vosegaard
Aarhus University
Lars Evenäs
Wallenberg Wood Science Center (WWSC)
FibRe-Center for Lignocellulose-based Thermoplastics
Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry
Anna Ström
FibRe-Center for Lignocellulose-based Thermoplastics
Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry
Carbohydrate Polymers
0144-8617 (ISSN) 18791344 (eISSN)
Vol. 392 125873Subject Categories (SSIF 2025)
Organic Chemistry
Physical Chemistry
DOI
10.1016/j.carbpol.2026.125873
Related datasets
Supplementary data [dataset]
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19210787