| Abstract: | Cotton cellulose in fabric form was crosslinked with divinyl sulfone by catalysis with solutions of sodium hydroxide of normalities ranging from 0.1 to 4.0. The molecular chains of cellulose were hydrolyzed with sulfuric acid to yield hydrolyzates from which simple substituted glucoses (i.e., those bonded to a single unit of DVS), the simple crosslinked glucoses (i.e., those joined together by a single unit of DVS), and complex structures (i.e., those substituted or crosslinked with more than one unit of DVS in the chain) were isolated and measured. The fractions of the reagent residues in the forms of the structures noted above were found to change substantially with the concentration of base employed to catalyze the reaction. The constitution of the reagent residues resulting from reaction in 0.1N base was remarkably simple: 82% of the DVS residues in the form of simple crosslinks and 18% in the form of simple substituents. Complex structures accounted for as much as 70% of the DVS residues under other conditions of reaction. |
