Title
Improving the yield of trimethylsilyl cellulose by activation of cellulose with ethylenediamine
Authors
AIJIAN HE DAORUI LIU HONGMEI TIAN YONGCAN JIN QIANG CHENG and JUNLONG SONG

Received December 31, 2012
Published Volume 48 Issue 1-2 January-February
Keywords cellulose, trimethylsilyl cellulose, ethylenediamine

Abstract
Trimethylsilyl cellulose (TMSC), an important precursor of regenerated cellulose, is difficult to obtain since cellulose is difficult to react with hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS) due to its low solubility in common solvents. Therefore it is necessary to activate cellulose prior to the reaction. In this investigation, alkali and ethylenediamine (EDA) were used for cellulose activation prior to TMSC production and their effects were evaluated by TMSC yields. Initially, cellulose was pretreated by either alkali or EDA, and then activated cellulose was dissolved in LiCl/DMAc solution. At last, HMDS reacted with the prepared homogenous cellulose to produce TMSC. The results showed that the yield of TMSC obtained from cellulose activated by alkali and EDA was 50.1% and 86.7%, respectively. It means cellulose pretreated by EDA improves the yield of TMSC by up to 36.6%, comparing with that treated by NaOH under the same reaction conditions. XRD results unveiled that the allomorph transformation and the associated crystallinity reduction of cellulose when treated by EDA may contribute to the easy dissolution of cellulose and improved yield of TMSC.