title: Brief overview on cellulose dissolution/regeneration interactions and mechanisms.
abstract: The development of cellulose dissolution/regeneration strategies constitutes an increasingly active research field. These are fundamental aspects of many production processes and applications. A wide variety of suitable solvents for cellulose is already available. Nevertheless, most solvent systems have important limitations, and there is an intense activity in both industrial and academic research aiming to optimize existing solvents and develop new ones. Cellulose solvents are of highly different nature giving great challenges in the understanding of the subtle balance between the different interactions. Here, we briefly review the cellulose dissolution and regeneration mechanisms for some selected solvents. Insolubility is often attributed to strong intermolecular hydrogen bonding between cellulose molecules. However, recent work rather emphasizes the role of cellulose charge and the concomitant ion entropy effects, as well as hydrophobic interactions.
authors.affiliation: IBB-CGB, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, Ed. 8, University of Algarve, Campus de Gambelas, Faro 8005-139, Portugal. Electronic address: bfmedronho@ualg.pt.
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Medronho
authors.affiliation: Division of Physical Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, Center for Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lund University, Lund SE-221 00, Sweden; Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798, Singapore.
authors.forename: Björn
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lindman
mesh_terms: D002482:Cellulose / Q000737:chemistry*; D012997:Solvents / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D012997:Solvents; D002482:Cellulose
keywords: Cellulose dissolution; Cellulose regeneration; Hydrogen bonding; Hydrophobic interactions; Solvents