An efficient method for the synthesis of hemicellulosic derivatives with bifunctional groups in butanol/water medium and their rheological properties

Chemical modification is the most important method to design novel biopolymer and biomaterials from the abundant and biocompatible hemicelluloses. In this paper, an efficient method to synthesize hemicellulosic derivatives with bifunctional groups was developed by the etherification of hemicelluloses with acrylamide in the butanol/water medium. Varying the reaction condition such as reaction time, reaction temperature, and the amount of acrylamide and so on, the optimized hemicellulosic derivative with a higher total degree of substituent (DS) of 0.92 and with the 0.43 ratio of carbamoylethy groups and carboxyethyl groups was obtained. 13C NMR analysis showed that the etherification occurred preferably at C-3 position of xylose. A significant degradation of the polymers occurred during the etherification. The shear-thinning of the hemicellulosic derivatives became more dramatic. The solution of the hemicellulosic derivatives showed lower viscosity and modulus as compared with the native hemicelluloses, exhibiting a less elastic behavior.