Nanoreinforced biocompatible hydrogels from wood hemicelluloses and cellulose whiskers

Enhanced Absorbent Products Incorporating Cellulose and Its Derivatives: A Review

“…The importance of hemicellulose was also shown by Laine and Stenius (1997), who demonstrated a positive relationship between fiber ionic charge and swelling with water. Recently several researchers have attempted to take advantage of the hydrophilic nature of hemicelluloses by using them as a key component of highly absorbent hydrogels (Gabrielli and Gatenholm 1998;Gabrielli et al 2000;Meena et al 2011;Peng et al 2011;Pohjanlehto et al 2011;Salam et al 2011a;Yang et al 2011;Karaaslan et al 2010Karaaslan et al , 2011Karaaslan et al , 2012.…”

“…Nanocellulose also has been incorporated into hydrogel products (Abbas et al 2011;Karaaslan et al 2011;Gane et al 2012). The mechanical integrity of such hydrogels is generally improved by such addition (Karaaslan et al 2011), suggesting that the elongated nanocellulose particles can have a function similar to that of a cross-linking agent, or probably more precisely as nano-reinforcement of the gel structure.…”

“…The mechanical integrity of such hydrogels is generally improved by such addition (Karaaslan et al 2011), suggesting that the elongated nanocellulose particles can have a function similar to that of a cross-linking agent, or probably more precisely as nano-reinforcement of the gel structure. A tight, relatively defect-free attachment between cellulose nanofillers and a hydrogel matrix has been demonstrated by a high transparency of such nanocomposite hydrogels (Dai and Kadla 2009).…”

Functionalized Polymers from Lignocellulosic Biomass: State of the Art

“…Purified hemicelluloses have fewer commercial applications than cellulose and lignin, but in recent years, interest in production of value-added products, such as xylitol [192][193][194][195][196], packaging films [197][198][199] and hydrogels [200][201][202][203][204][205][206][207][208][209] based on hemicelluloses has increased. Xylitol is used for sweetening owing to its dietetic and anticariogenic properties.…”

“…pHEMA hydrogels with modified hemicellulose and cellulose nanowhiskers were also synthesized and characterized for a potential replacement material of articular cartilage [204]. HEMA-modified hemicellulose, isolated from aspen wood was adsorbed onto the cellulose nanowhiskers in aqueous medium and hydrogels were synthesized by in situ radical polymerization of the methacrylic groups of the adsorbed coating to form a network of pHEMA matrix reinforced with cellulose nanowhiskers.…”