Investigation of solubility of microcrystalline cellulose in aqueous NaOH

A cost-effective and environmentally friendly method to dissolve microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) has been utilized. A detailed investigation of the effects of cellulose amount and solvent (aqueous NaOH) concentration on MCC solubility has been presented. In the experiments, NaOH solutions with concentrations ranging from 3.7 to 18.6 wt% have been employed to dissolve MCC with various weights. The results show that an optimal NaOH concentration range can always be found to give the best solubility of MCC having a certain weight. The solubility monotonically decreases with either the decreasing or increasing of NaOH concentration away from the optimal concentration range. In addition, the optimal concentration range of NaOH for dissolving cellulose has been shown to shrink as the amount of MCC increases. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.