Structure Elucidation of Hydroxypropyl Cellulose Homogenously Prepared from NaOH/Urea Aqueous Solution

Hydroxypropyl celluloses (HPC) were homogenously synthesized by the reaction of cellulose with propylene oxide in NaOH/urea aqueous solution.Water-soluble HPC with molar degree of substitution (MSNMR) in the range of 0.52～ 0.78 was prepared from microcrystalline cellulose,cotton linters,and spruce sulfite pulp.The structure of the HPC samples was characterized by means of FT-IR,NMR,gas chromatography (GC),and size exclusion chromatography (SEC) analyses.Three types of cellulose samples with different molecular weights were found to dissolve well in the NaOH/urea solvent with no obvious differences in reactivity and regioselectivity.The relative reactivity of hydroxyl groups in the glycosyl unit was in the following order:O-6 ＞ O-2 ＞O-3.In addition,the results of the study indicated that the tandem reaction during hydroxypropylation could be ignored.