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   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    Fundamentals of water as a solvent could lead to greener cellulose-based   
   products    
      
     Date:   
         May 3, 2023   
     Source:   
         North Carolina State University   
     Summary:   
         Water can change its solubility characteristics depending upon   
         what it interacts with.   
      
      
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   FULL STORY   
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   Water isn't just a universal solvent that remains unaffected by its   
   interactions. New publications from North Carolina State University show   
   that water can change its solubility characteristics depending upon what   
   it interacts with. Specifically, when water interacts with cellulose,   
   it can stack in layered shells to control chemical reactions within,   
   and physical properties of, the material. The work has implications for   
   more sustainable and efficient design of cellulose-based products.   
      
   "Cellulose is the world's most abundant biopolymer, and it's used in   
   applications that range from bandages to electronics," says Lucian   
   Lucia, professor of forest biomaterials and chemistry at NC State and   
   corresponding author of a new study in Matter. "But cellulose processing   
   has been mostly done by trial and error, and some of it utilizes   
   incredibly harsh chemicals. To find better ways to process cellulose,   
   we need to understand its most fundamental interactions -- for example,   
   with water."  To do so, he worked with colleague Jim Martin, professor   
   of chemistry at NC State, who studies the fundamental properties of   
   water as a solvent.   
      
   "Water has the uncanny ability to change characteristics depending on   
   what it's with, which gives it wide range of solubility characteristics,"   
   Martin says.   
      
   Martin is the author of an opinion piece in Matter that is a companion   
   to Lucia's study.   
      
   "We change the nature of water by what we dissolve in it, and by the   
   concentrations of those solutes in water," Martin says. "Think of the   
   continuum between Kool-Aid and hard candy. You start with sugar. In   
   Kool-Aid the sugar is completely dissolved. As you remove the water, you   
   get taffy, then hard candy, then back to crystalline sugar."  "We know   
   that water is critical to how cellulose is laid down," Lucia says. "So   
   in this study we probed how it orients itself and plays a reactive role   
   in mitigating or leveraging chemistry."  The researchers physically   
   manipulated different types of wood fibers and looked at how water bound   
   to itself and other molecules within the resulting structures. They   
   saw that at lower water contents, the water distribution and resulting   
   molecular interactions between the water and the fibers create bridging   
   structures within the material that cause it to lose flexibility.   
      
   In fact, they saw that the water can "hide" itself within the cellulose   
   network, forming strong hydrogen bonds. This bonding in turn dictates   
   the tightness or looseness of the bridging structures.   
      
   "The water forms shells around the fibers that can stack, like a nesting   
   Russian doll," Martin says. "The fewer shells, or layers, the harder   
   the fibers. But when you add more layers, the connection between fibers   
   grows farther away and the material becomes softer."  The researchers   
   hope to explore the variety of bonds water forms within these structures   
   in future work.   
      
   "Studying these interactions at the molecular level paves the way toward   
   manipulating water in cellulose to design better products and processes,"   
   Lucian says. "Understanding what is happening from fundamental principles   
   lets us design approaches that take advantage of water's properties for   
   everything from drug delivery to designing electronics."   
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   Story Source: Materials provided by   
   North_Carolina_State_University. Original written by Tracey Peake. Note:   
   Content may be edited for style and length.   
      
      
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   Journal Reference:   
      1. Kandoker Samaher Salem, Nelson Barrios, Hasan Jameel, Lokendra Pal,   
         Lucian Lucia,. Computational and experimental insights into the   
         molecular architecture of water-cellulose networks. Matter, 2023   
         DOI: 10.1016/ j.matt.2023.03.021   
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   Link to news story:   
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/05/230503154613.htm   
      
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