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Article
Open AccessCoastal and deep-sea biodegradation of polyhydroxyalkanoate microbeads
Microbeads find widespread usage in personal care items and cosmetics, serving as exfoliants or scrubbing agents. Their micro-scale size poses challenges in effective drainage capture and given their origin fr...
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Article
Open AccessMicrobial decomposition of biodegradable plastics on the deep-sea floor
Microbes can decompose biodegradable plastics on land, rivers and seashore. However, it is unclear whether deep-sea microbes can degrade biodegradable plastics in the extreme environmental conditions of the se...
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Article
Open AccessMonitoring crystallite fusion of nanocellulose during colloid condensation
The crystallinity of cellulose decreases when bundled microfibrils are dispersed in water as cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) or physically separated into finer nanoscale fibrils or single microfibrils. The crystal...
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Article
Open AccessQuantitative analysis of the formation of monodisperse cello-oligomers obtained by phosphoric acid hydrolysis
Hydrolysis of cellulose in concentrated phosphoric acid is known to give two distinctive mono-disperse cello-oligomers: the degree of polymerization (DP) of 7 and 15. To understand the formation mechanism of m...
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Article
Open AccessCellulose dissolution and regeneration using a non-aqueous, non-stoichiometric protic ionic liquid system
The solubility of cellulose has been studied as a function of composition in the binary mixture of 1,1,3,3-tetramethylguanidine and propionic acid. In amine-rich compositions, greater quantities of cellulose c...
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Article
Origin of hydrophilicity of cellulose hydrogel from aqueous LiOH/urea solvent coagulated with alkyl alcohols
Surface and structural properties of cellulose hydrogel prepared from LiOH/urea solvent with alcoholic coagulation were examined. As coagulants, alcohols from methanol to butanol were employed. Alcohol with hi...
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Article
Enzymatic hydrolysis of wood with alkaline treatment
Pulverized samples of wood, cedar and eucalyptus were treated with 5 N NaOH solutions at 25–150 °C. Hemicellulose and lignin content in the samples decreased with increasing treatment temperatures, while the r...
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Article
Role of urea in alkaline dissolution of cellulose
To elucidate the role of urea in dissolution of cellulose in aqueous alkali-urea solvent, the dissolution process was monitored by differential scanning calorimetry and X-ray diffractometry. Urea had no direct...
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Article
Immobilization of protein on cellulose hydrogel
A technique of immobilizing an enzyme/antibody was developed using cellulose hydrogel prepared from an aqueous alkali-urea solvent. Partial oxidation by sodium periodate activated the cellulose gel for introdu...
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Article
Anomalous reinforcing effects in cellulose gel-based polymeric nanocomposites
Cellulose-synthetic polymer nanocomposite films were prepared by immersion of cellulose gel in polymer solutions followed by dry casting. The cellulose hydrogel was prepared from aqueous alkali-urea solution. ...
