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Chemical and Physical Properties of Polysaccharides and Their Derivatives

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A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Biomacromolecules, Biobased and Biodegradable Polymers".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2021) | Viewed by 36501

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Jean Duhamel

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Institute for Polymer Research, Waterloo Institute of Nanotechnology, Department of Chemistry, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada
Interests: fluorescence; polymer science; polypeptides; polysaccharides; polymeric bottle brushes
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Cellulose and starch are the first and second most abundant biopolymers produced on Earth. They are non-toxic, cost effective, and biodegradable. Unsurprisingly, considering these advantageous features, polysaccharides are increasingly viewed as feedstocks that could be used to mass produce chemicals and materials with novel properties. Contrary to proteins and DNA, which Nature produces with a high level of accuracy, polysaccharides are usually poorly defined, complicating their characterization and chemical modification. They are typically polydisperse in size, branched to different degrees, and often crystalline. These characteristics complicate the study of polysaccharides. Consequently, polysaccharides are currently the focus of intense research aimed at finding new ways to characterize and modify them. This Special Issue aims to provide a platform to showcase recent research advances in the active field of polysaccharide research.

Prof. Dr. Jean Duhamel
Guest Editor

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Keywords

polysaccharides
biomaterials
characterization
modification
properties
applications

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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10 pages, 1812 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Extraction and Characterization of Hemicelluloses from a Softwood Acid Sulfite Pulp

by Pauline Vincent, Frédérique Ham-Pichavant, Christelle Michaud, Gérard Mignani, Sergio Mastroianni, Henri Cramail and Stéphane Grelier

Polymers 2021, 13(13), 2044; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13132044 - 22 Jun 2021

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 2471

Abstract

Hemicelluloses were extracted from a softwood acid sulfite pulp in a three-step procedure. Further delignification step resulted in a holocellulose pulp containing only 1.7 wt.% of the lignin left. Cold caustic extraction (CCE) with 18 wt.% NaOH at 60 °C for 1 h was performed to solubilize hemicelluloses of the holocellulose. An unbleached cellulose pulp was then obtained 97% pure, which indicates that 89% of the hemicelluloses were removed. After purification, extraction yields between 1.1 wt.% and 9.5 wt.% were obtained from the delignified pulp and the hemicelluloses’ chemical compositions and structures were investigated by ¹H, ¹³C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) and two-dimensional NMR by correlation spectroscopy (2D-COSY) and proton-detected heteronuclear single-quantum correlation (2D-HSQC), high-performance anion-exchange chromatography coupled with a pulsed amperometry detector (HPAEC-PAD), size-exclusion chromatography coupled with a refractive index detector (SEC-RI) and thermogravimetric analyses (TGA). Hemicelluloses were obtained with a purity of 96%, with short cellulosic chains as the only residue. Sulfite pulping modified the hemicelluloses’ structure, and it was found that two types of hemicelluloses were isolated, glucomannans, predominant at 67%, and methylglucuronoxylans. Finally, alkali-soluble hemicelluloses displayed relatively narrow size distributions and low molar masses, M_w varying between 18,900 and 30,000 g/mol after acid sulfite pulping. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemical and Physical Properties of Polysaccharides and Their Derivatives)

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22 pages, 2932 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Production of Cyclic Anhydride-Modified Starches

by Ryan C. Amos, Julien Mesnager, Michael Kuska and Mario Gauthier

Polymers 2021, 13(9), 1504; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13091504 - 07 May 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2894

Abstract

Modified starches offer a biodegradable, readily available, and cost-effective alternative to petroleum-based products. The reaction of alkenylsuccinic anhydrides (ASAs), in particular, is an efficient method to produce amphiphilic starches with numerous applications in different areas. While ASAs are typically derived from petroleum sources, maleated soybean oil can also be used in an effort to produce materials from renewable sources. The reaction of gelatinized waxy maize starch with octenylsuccinic anhydride (OSA), dodecenylsuccinic anhydride (DDSA), a maleated fatty acid (TENAX 2010), phthalic anhydride (PA), 1,2,4-benzenetricarboxylic acid anhydride (trimellitic anhydride, TMA), and three maleated soybean oil samples, was investigated under different conditions. To minimize the reaction time and the amount of water required, the outcome of the esterification reaction was compared for starch dispersions in benchtop dispersed reactions, for starch melts in a heated torque rheometer, and for reactive extrusion in a pilot plant scale twin-screw extruder. The extent of reaction was quantified by ¹H NMR analysis, and changes in molecular weight and diameter were monitored by gel permeation chromatography (GPC) analysis. The outcome of the reactions varied markedly in terms of reaction efficiency (RE), molecular weight distribution, and average hydrodynamic diameter, for the products derived from the different maleated reagents used, as well as for the different reaction protocols. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemical and Physical Properties of Polysaccharides and Their Derivatives)

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14 pages, 4468 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Synthesis and Characterization of Hydrophobically Modified Xylans

by Huai N. Cheng, Atanu Biswas, Sanghoon Kim, Carlucio R. Alves and Roselayne F. Furtado

Polymers 2021, 13(2), 291; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13020291 - 18 Jan 2021

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2545

Abstract

Xylan is a major type of hemicellulose that has attracted a lot of research and development activities. It is often derivatized in order to improve its properties. In the literature, hydrophobic modification of polymers is often used to produce surfactant-like materials and associative thickeners. In this work, we have derivatized xylan with alkyl ketene dimer (AKD) and two types of alkenyl succinic anhydrides (ASAs). The xylan-AKD derivatives have been made at 90 °C, using dimethyl sulfoxide as solvent and 4-dimethylaminopyridine as promoter. Samples with degrees of substitution (DS) up to 0.006 have been produced. The xylan-ASA derivatives have been synthesized at 120 °C in dimethyl sulfoxide with DS up to 0.105–0.135. The structures of these products have been confirmed with NMR and FT-IR. These xylan derivatives increase the structural diversity of xylan and provide additional options for people seeking to use hydrophobically modified polysaccharides in their applications. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemical and Physical Properties of Polysaccharides and Their Derivatives)

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13 pages, 5345 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Interior of Amylopectin and Nano-Sized Amylopectin Fragments Probed by Viscometry, Dynamic Light Scattering, and Pyrene Excimer Fluorescence

by Lu Li and Jean Duhamel

Polymers 2020, 12(11), 2649; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym12112649 - 11 Nov 2020

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1731

Abstract

Nano-sized amylopectin fragments (NAFs), prepared by extrusion of waxy corn starch, were investigated by viscometry, dynamic light scattering (DLS), and pyrene excimer fluorescence (PEF). NAF57, with a hydrodynamic diameter of 57 nm, was treated with nitric acid to yield three degraded NAFs, which appeared to share the same interior and structural features as amylopectin based on their measured intrinsic viscosity and hydrodynamic diameter. This conclusion was further supported by comparing the efficiency of forming excimer between an excited and a ground-state pyrenyl label covalently attached to the NAFs (Py-NAFs) using their I_E/I_M ratio of the fluorescence intensity of the excimer (I_E) to that of the monomer (I_M). The overlapping trends obtained for all Py-NAFs and the pyrene-labeled amylopectin samples by plotting the I_E/I_M ratio as a function of pyrene content provided further evidence that the interior of NAFs and amylopectin shared the same structural features and contained a similar amount of free volume as predicted by the Solution-Cluster (Sol-CL) model. The presence of free volume was validated by adding linear poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) chains that could not penetrate the interior of Py-NAFs, thus subjecting the Py-NAFs to increased osmotic pressure, which induced their compression and resulted in an increase in I_E/I_M. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemical and Physical Properties of Polysaccharides and Their Derivatives)

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21 pages, 2409 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sequestration of Sulfate Anions from Groundwater by Biopolymer-Metal Composite Materials

by Md. Mehadi Hassan, Mohamed H. Mohamed, Inimfon A. Udoetok, Bernd G. K. Steiger and Lee D. Wilson

Polymers 2020, 12(7), 1502; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym12071502 - 06 Jul 2020

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 3224

Abstract

Binary (Chitosan-Cu(II), CCu) and Ternary (Chitosan-Alginate-Cu(II), CACu) composite materials were synthesized at variable composition: CCu (1:1), CACu1 (1:1:1), CACu2 (1:2:1) and CACu3 (2:1:1). Characterization was carried out via spectroscopic (FTIR, solids C-13 NMR, XPS and Raman), thermal (differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and TGA), XRD, point of zero charge and solvent swelling techniques. The materials’ characterization confirmed the successful preparation of the polymer-based composites, along with their variable physico-chemical and adsorption properties. Sulfate anion (sodium sulfate) adsorption from aqueous solution was demonstrated using C and CACu1 at pH 6.8 and 295 K, where the monolayer adsorption capacity (Q_m) values were 288.1 and 371.4 mg/g, respectively, where the Sips isotherm model provided the “best-fit” for the adsorption data. Single-point sorption study on three types of groundwater samples (wells 1, 2 and 3) with variable sulfate concentration and matrix composition in the presence of composite materials reveal that CACu3 exhibited greater uptake of sulfate (Q_e = 81.5 mg/g; 11.5% removal) from Well-1 and CACu2 showed the lowest sulfate uptake (Q_e of 15.7 mg/g; 0.865% removal) from Well-3. Generally, for all groundwater samples, the binary composite material (CCu) exhibited attenuated sorption and removal efficiency relative to the ternary composite materials (CACu). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemical and Physical Properties of Polysaccharides and Their Derivatives)

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18 pages, 5022 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Influence of Oxidation Degree on the Physicochemical Properties of Oxidized Inulin

by Franklin Afinjuomo, Paris Fouladian, Thomas G. Barclay, Yunmei Song, Nikolai Petrovsky and Sanjay Garg

Polymers 2020, 12(5), 1025; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym12051025 - 01 May 2020

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3837

Abstract

This paper reports the oxidation of inulin using varying ratios of sodium periodate and the characterization of the inulin polyaldehyde. The physicochemical properties of the inulin polyaldehyde (oxidized inulin) were characterized using different techniques including 1D NMR spectroscopy, ¹³C Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetric (DSC), ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The aldehyde peak was not very visible in the FTIR, because the aldehyde functional group exists in a masked form (hemiacetal). The thermal stability of the oxidized inulin decreased with the increasing oxidation degree. The smooth spherical shape of raw inulin was destructed due to the oxidation, as confirmed by the SEM result. The ¹HNMR results show some new peaks from 4.8 to 5.0 as well as around 5.63 ppm. However, no aldehyde peak was found around 9.7 ppm. This can be attributed to the hemiacetal. The reaction of oxidized inulin with tert-butyl carbazate produced a carbazone conjugate. There was clear evidence of decreased peak intensity for the proton belonging to the hemiacetal group. This clearly shows that not all of the hemiacetal group can be reverted by carbazate. In conclusion, this work provides vital information as regards changes in the physicochemical properties of the oxidized inulin, which has direct implications when considering the further utilization of this biomaterial. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemical and Physical Properties of Polysaccharides and Their Derivatives)

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Review

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33 pages, 6513 KiB

Open AccessReview

Hyaluronic Acid: The Influence of Molecular Weight on Structural, Physical, Physico-Chemical, and Degradable Properties of Biopolymer

by Petr Snetkov, Kseniia Zakharova, Svetlana Morozkina, Roman Olekhnovich and Mayya Uspenskaya

Polymers 2020, 12(8), 1800; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym12081800 - 11 Aug 2020

Cited by 207 | Viewed by 19036

Abstract

Hyaluronic acid, as a natural linear polysaccharide, has attracted researchers’ attention from its initial detection and isolation from tissues in 1934 until the present day. Due to biocompatibility and a high biodegradation of hyaluronic acid, it finds wide application in bioengineering and biomedicine: from biorevitalizing skin cosmetics and endoprostheses of joint fluid to polymeric scaffolds and wound dressings. However, the main properties of aqueous polysaccharide solutions with different molecular weights are different. Moreover, the therapeutic effect of hyaluronic acid-based preparations directly depends on the molecular weight of the biopolymer. The present review collects the information about relations between the molecular weight of hyaluronic acid and its original properties. Particular emphasis is placed on the structural, physical and physico-chemical properties of hyaluronic acid in water solutions, as well as their degradability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemical and Physical Properties of Polysaccharides and Their Derivatives)

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