IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v12y2021i1d10.1038_s41467-021-22682-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unique reactivity of nanoporous cellulosic materials mediated by surface-confined water

Author

Listed:
  • Marco Beaumont

    (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU)
    Aalto University)

  • Paul Jusner

    (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU))

  • Notburga Gierlinger

    (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences)

  • Alistair W. T. King

    (University of Helsinki)

  • Antje Potthast

    (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU))

  • Orlando J. Rojas

    (Aalto University
    University of British Columbia)

  • Thomas Rosenau

    (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU)
    Åbo Akademi University)

Abstract

The remarkable efficiency of chemical reactions is the result of biological evolution, often involving confined water. Meanwhile, developments of bio-inspired systems, which exploit the potential of such water, have been so far rather complex and cumbersome. Here we show that surface-confined water, inherently present in widely abundant and renewable cellulosic fibres can be utilised as nanomedium to endow a singular chemical reactivity. Compared to surface acetylation in the dry state, confined water increases the reaction rate and efficiency by 8 times and 30%, respectively. Moreover, confined water enables control over chemical accessibility of selected hydroxyl groups through the extent of hydration, allowing regioselective reactions, a major challenge in cellulose modification. The reactions mediated by surface-confined water are sustainable and largely outperform those occurring in organic solvents in terms of efficiency and environmental compatibility. Our results demonstrate the unexploited potential of water bound to cellulosic nanostructures in surface esterifications, which can be extended to a wide range of other nanoporous polymeric structures and reactions.

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Beaumont & Paul Jusner & Notburga Gierlinger & Alistair W. T. King & Antje Potthast & Orlando J. Rojas & Thomas Rosenau, 2021. "Unique reactivity of nanoporous cellulosic materials mediated by surface-confined water," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-8, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-22682-3
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22682-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22682-3
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-021-22682-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elena Subbotina & Farsa Ram & Sergey V. Dvinskikh & Lars A. Berglund & Peter Olsén, 2022. "Aqueous synthesis of highly functional, hydrophobic, and chemically recyclable cellulose nanomaterials through oxime ligation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-22682-3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.