One-pot and one-step preparation of “living” cellulose nanofiber hydrogel with active double-bond via chemical vapor deposition

Abstract

Due to the existence of water, it is still a challenge to conduct chemical modification on cellulose nanofiber (CNF) hydrogels with active double bonds. A simple one-pot and one-step method for constructing “living” CNF hydrogel with double bond was created at room temperature. The chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of methacryloyl chloride (MACl) was used to introduce physical-trapped, chemical-anchored and functional double bonds into TEMPO-oxidized cellulose nanofiber (TOCN) hydrogels. TOCN hydrogel could be fabricated within just 0.5 h, the minimum dosage of MACl could be reduced to 3.22 mg/g (MACl/TOCN hydrogel). Furthermore, the CVD methods showed high efficiency for mass production and recyclability. Moreover, the chemical “living” reactivity of the introduced double bonds were verified by the freezing and UV crosslinking, radical polymerization and thiol-ene click reaction. Compared with pure TOCN hydrogel, the obtained functionalized TOCN hydrogel exhibited remarkable improvements in mechanical properties, with enhancements of 12.34 times and 2.04 times, as well as an increase in hydrophobicity by 2.14 times and a fluorescence performance improvement of 2.93 times.