Enhancing the mechanical performance of lignin based hydrogel via lignin acetylation

作者：Wang, Xuelian; Li, Xinping^*; Yadav, Chandravati; Lan, Wu; Wang, Linping; Uraki, Yasumitsu; Kang, Jia; Zhang, Hui Jie^*; You, Xiangyu^*

来源：INDUSTRIAL CROPS AND PRODUCTS, 2023, 199: 116780.

DOI：10.1016/j.indcrop.2023.116780

• Kraft lignin
• Acetylation
• Hydrogel
• Mechanical performance
• Noncytotoxicity

Kraft lignin (KL) is an industrial byproduct of pulp preparation from woody biomass and is mainly burned for energy recovery. To explore value-added applications of KL, it was first acetylated, and acetylated lignin (AcL) was combined with poly(N,N-dimethylacrylamide) to prepare tough lignin hydrogels crosslinked by hydrophobic lignin domains via a simple solvent exchange method. The AcL hydrogels (AcLGs) with optimum mechanical properties have a high tensile strength of 1.7 MPa, large Young's modulus of 1 MPa, and super high fracture energy of similar to 47600 J m(-2). The Young's modulus and tensile strength of AcLG are 60 and 6 times higher than those of the pristine KL based hydrogel, respectively. AcLG had a weak inhibitory effect on Chinese hamster lung cell proliferation. Owing to its good mechanical properties and noncytotoxicity, AcLG has excellent potential as a biomedical material.

• 单位
  中国科学院; 中国科学院宁波材料技术与工程研究所; 陕西科技大学