Innovative amphiphilic cellulose nanobiostructures: Physicochemical,spectroscopic, morphological,and hydrophilic/lipophilic properties

The amphiphilic character of cellulosic copolymers offers the opportunity to employ their derivatives as novel bio-friendly stable amphiphilic agents. It can be speculated that the synthesized nanobiostructures with hydrophilic and hydrophobic segments will have micellar features. Our investigations, for the first time, demonstrate that the amphiphilic nature of the synthesized macromolecules based on hydrophobic cellulose triacetate (CTA) and hydroxyl terminated oligomeric species of CTA (HCTA) by using hydrophilic polyethylene glycol (PEG) with M_n 600 and 2000 D as CTA-g-PEG, 600; CTA-g-PEG, 2000; HCTA-b-PEG, 600; and HCTA-b-PEG, 2000. The characteristic features of the copolymers were determined by XRD, differential scanning calorimeter, ¹H NMR, FTIR, GPC, dynamic light scattering measurements, and transmission electron microscopy. In addition, their critical micelle concentrations were evaluated. The obtained results indicated that the hydrophobic blocks make a significant influence on the micellar characteristics of the surfactants. A comparison of the micellar behavior of a hydrophobic species, like pyrene, incorporated in the synthesized systems indicated that the incorporation content of the surfactants is influenced by the hydrophobic and hydrophilic chain lengths. Therefore, it is possible to design the diversity of the surfactants based on various hydrophilic/lipophilic balance.