A Crystallinity Study of Cellulosic Fibers Employing Deuteration and Infrared Spectroscopy

Abstract

The crystallinities of the cellulosic materials, cotton, ramie, and viscose rayon, were studied utilizing deuteration exchange and a recently developed method for obtaining the ir spectra of natural or synthetic short staple fibers. The crystallinities from this work are in the range of values reported by other investigators utilizing other methods. This work extends the deuteration-ir method to the determination of the crystallinities of short, staple cellulosic fibers in which the only change, other than deuterium exchange, is the physical pressing of the fibers so that ir spectra can be obtained.