Analysis of mercerization process based on the intensity change of deconvoluted resonances of 13C CP/MAS NMR: Cellulose mercerized under cooling and non-cooling conditions

The area intensity change of C1, C4, and C6 in spectrum obtained by 13C CP/MAS NMR and the mutual relationship between their changes were examined for cellulose samples treated with various concentrations of aqueous NaOH solutions under non-cooling and cooling conditions. The area intensity of C1-up and C6-down changed cooperatively with that of C4-down which corresponds to the crystallinity of samples: “-up” and “-down” are the up- and down- field component in a splitting peak of NMR spectrum, respectively. The intensity change of C1-up starts to decrease with decreasing in that of C4-down after that of C6-down is almost complete. These changes were more clearly observed for samples treated under cooling condition. It can be suggested that their characteristic change relates closely to the change in conformation of cellulose chains by induced decrystallization and the subsequent crystallization of cellulose II, and presumed that their changes at microscopic level relate to the macroscopic morphological changes such as contraction along the length of cellulose chains and recovery along the length.