Preparing cationic cotton linter cellulose with high substitution degree by ultrasonic treatment

As an important cellulose derivative, cationic cellulose has becoming an attractive material. However, it remains challenging to produce cationic cellulose with high substitute degree. In this paper, we successfully increased the substitute degree of cationic cellulose by introducing ultrasonic treatment, which efficiently breaks hydrogen bonds of the chemical structure of cationic cellulose. Properties of cationic cellulose were studied by scanning electron spectroscope (SEM), contact angle, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Experimental results show that the cationic cellulose has rougher surface and lower crystallinity degree as compared to the original sample. TGA analysis verifies that the thermostability of CLC decreases after the cationic modification. The residual of the cationic cellulose (25 wt%) after pyrolysis increases significantly as compared to that of the original cellulose (15 wt%).