Abstract
Cellulose being an excellent biopolymer has cemented its place firmly in many industries as a coating material, textile, composites, and biomaterial applications. In the present study, we have investigated the effect of biofield treatment on physicochemical properties of cellulose and cellulose acetate. The cellulose and cellulose acetate were exposed to biofield and further the chemical and thermal properties were investigated. X-ray diffraction study asserted that the biofield treatment did affect the crystalline nature of cellulose. The percentage of crystallite size was found increased significantly in treated cellulose by 159.83%, as compared to control sample. This showed that biofield treatment was changing the crystalline nature of treated cellulose. However treated cellulose acetate showed a reduction in crystallite size (-17.38%) as compared to control sample. Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) of treated cellulose showed no improvement in melting temperature as compared to control sample. Contrarily cellulose acetate showed significant improvement in melting temperature peak at 351.91oC as compared to control (344oC) polymer. Moreover percentage change in latent heat of fusion (ΔH) was calculated from the DSC thermogram of both treated and control polymers. A significant increase in percentage ΔH of both treated cellulose (59.09%) and cellulose acetate (105.79%) polymers indicated that biofield treatment enhanced the thermal stability of the treated polymers. CHNSO analysis revealed a significant change in percentage hydrogen and oxygen of treated cellulose (%H-17.77, %O-16.89) and cellulose acetate (%H-5.67, %O-13.41). Though minimal change was observed in carbon percentage of both treated cellulose (0.29%) and cellulose acetate (0.39%) polymers as compared to their respective control samples. Thermo gravimetric analysis and Differential thermo gravimetric (TGA-DTG) analysis of treated cellulose acetate (353oC) showed increased maximum thermal decomposition temperature as compared to control polymer (351oC). This showed the higher thermal stability of the treated cellulose acetate polymer; although the maximum thermal decomposition temperature of treated cellulose (248oC) was decreased as compared to control cellulose (321oC). These outcomes confirmed that biofield treatment has changed the physicochemical properties of the cellulose polymers.
Highlights
Polymer based materials; especially naturally occurring biopolymers have been widely used as biomaterials for tissue engineering, artificial skin, wound healing, sutures, tissue constructs, gene delivery, and drug delivery [1]
Treated cellulose acetate showed a marked increase (7.77oC ± 1oC) in melting peak as compared to control polymer. These findings clearly showed that exposing cellulose acetate to biofield treatment enhanced the thermal stability of the polymer
Our X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) result demonstrated the significant increase in crystalline and thermal properties of these polymers after biofield exposure
Summary
Polymer based materials; especially naturally occurring biopolymers have been widely used as biomaterials for tissue engineering, artificial skin, wound healing, sutures, tissue constructs, gene delivery, and drug delivery [1]. Several naturally occurring fibers including cotton; and higher plants contain cellulose as their main constituent [4,5]. It consists of long chains of anhydro-D-glucopyranose units (AGU); each cellulose molecule possesses three hydroxyl groups per AGU, with an exception of terminal ends. Cellulose based materials are being employed as components of scaffolds for bone regeneration (Gengiflex®), artificial blood vessel (BASYC®), temporary skin substitutes (Biofill®), hemodialysis membranes (Cuprophan® and Fresenius Polysulfone®) and controlled drug release systems [6,7,8,9,10]. Cellulose has been proposed to be used as a dialysis membrane for bio artificial pancreas and immuno-isolation of islet transplantation [12]
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