New Synthetic Routes to Cellulosic Graft Copolymers

生物聚合物如纤维素、淀粉和蛋白质可以大量获得，并且可以以适度的成本加工成高纯度的产品。然而，在现代研究中，生物聚合物的潜在应用在很大程度上被忽视了。利用可再生资源将合成聚合物接枝到天然聚合物上，将产生具有特殊和有趣性能的新型材料。几乎所有在文献中描述的接枝到纤维素和其他可再生材料的方法都涉及自由基聚合方法。接枝共聚物的分析揭示了一个非常低水平的接枝取代，只涉及几个高分子量的接枝。介绍了一种基于阴离子聚合的纤维素接枝共聚物的合成方法，该方法可以克服自由基接枝纤维素的问题，为制备新一代纤维素基超吸附剂、复合材料、可生物降解塑料和其他纤维素基产品开辟了新的途径。

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.