New Synthetic Routes to Cellulosic Graft Copolymers

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Biopolymers such as cellulose, starch, and proteins are available in large quantities and can be processed into high purity products at modest costs. However, biopolymers have been largely neglected in modern research for potential applications in polymeric materials. The grafting of synthetic polymers to natural polymers from renewable resources should lead to new classes of materials with specific and interesting properties. Nearly all of the approaches described in the literature for grafting onto cellulose and other renewable materials have involved free radical polymerization methods. An analysis of the graft copolymer reveals a very low level of graft substitution, involving only a few high molecular weight grafts. A new synthetic approach to cellulosic graft copolymers based on the anionic polymerization has been described which may overcome the problems of the free radical graft cellulosics-polymers might open up new avenues to prepare a new generation of cellulose-based super-adsorbents, composites, biodegradable plastics, and other cellulose-based products.