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Micellar Structure of Native Cellulose

Abstract

Ranby and Ribi1 have recently described how native cellulose particles of micellar dimensions can be produced by boiling cotton fibres in dilute sulphuric acid and then washing to a pH of approximately 4. We have examined the effect on cotton and ramie of more concentrated acid at lower temperatures (for example, 975 gm./l. and 20° C.) and have obtained somewhat similar results. We find that with increasing severity of our treatment the ultimate product of the dissolution appears to consist of particles between 500 and 2500 A. in length with a roughly constant cross-section (50 A. thick and 150–200 A. wide). In the earlier stages of disintegration larger flat aggregates are obtained, and we have been able to prepare brittle transparent films from the colloidal solution of these. X-ray examination of such films shows that, when the X-ray beam is perpendicular to the film, the 101 and 10&1bar; reflexions of cellulose I appear as rings, as they should; but the former is abnormally weak in intensity. When the beam is parallel to the film, a strong 101 reflexion appears on the equator, and 10&1bar;, partly oriented on the equator and partly on the meridian, is weak in comparison. Photometer records showing these results are given in the accompanying diagram. The 101 planes are thus preferentially oriented parallel to the plane of the film. Since the aggregated particles are themselves flat and must thus tend to lie down parallel to the same plane, we deduce that the crystal axial orientation tends to persist throughout the aggregates.

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References

  1. Ranby and Ribi, Experientia, 6, 12 (1950). Ranby, Acta Chemica Scand., 3, 649 (1949).

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  2. Sen and Woods, Biochim. et Biophys. Acta, 3, 510 (1949).

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  3. Mukherjee, R. R., and Woods, Nature, 165, 818 (1950).

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MUKHERJEE, S., SIKORSKI, J. & WOODS, H. Micellar Structure of Native Cellulose. Nature 167, 821–822 (1951). https://doi.org/10.1038/167821b0

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