Sustainable Building Blocks for Today's Chemistry: Hydrophilic/lipophilic Balance of Cellulosic Nanobiomaterials

In an effort to obtain systems with ability to act as a surfactant, new types of amphiphilic graft and block copolymers were synthesized based on hydrophobic cellulose triacetate (CTA) and hydroxyl terminated oligomeric species of CTA (HCTA) by using hydrophilic polyethylene oxide (PEO) with Mn 600 and 2000 as [CTA-g-PEO, 600]; [CTA-g-PEO, 2000]; [HCTA-co-PEO, 600] and [HCTA-g-PEO, 2000], respectively. The structural, physicochemical and morphological properties of the copolymers were determined by using FTIR, 1H NMR, GPC, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), intrinsic viscosity measurements, dynamic light scattering (DLS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). X-ray diffraction patterns as well as DSC thermograms indicate that the HCTA is indeed in the CTA II state. The obtained results indicated that the hydrophobic blocks make a significant influence on the physicochemical characteristics of the synthesized surfactants. Moreover, a comparison of the crystalinity of the synthesized surfactants indicated that their structures are influenced by hydrophilic/lypophilic balance (HLB). Consequently, to regulate a suitable formulation of amphiphilic copolymer in water, a highly hydrophobic surfactant is necessary. Our experiments to tune up cellulosic surfactants with the best optimized HLB are ongoing.