Explore the vast range of titles available.

Nanocellulose has a wide range of applications in the field of functional materials, and it has piqued the interest of researchers for some time. This is because nanocellulose inherits the advantages of environmental friendliness and easy availability of plant cell walls in nature, as well as the unique morphology of nanostructures. This review presents four types of nanocellulose including cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs), cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs), regenerated nanocellulose (RNC) and bacterial cellulose (BC), introduces the different preparation routes and their mechanisms, analyzes the advantages and drawbacks between these approaches, and summarizes the potential applications in the field of functional materials such as reinforced composite materials, biomedical materials, soft templates, and optical materials. Finally, future development directions are proposed including further enrichment of nanocellulose raw materials, improvement of preparation methods to adapt to more diversified raw materials, and classification of products according to their morphology and properties to improve the use efficiency.

With the increasing severity of global water pollution, research on the application of functional polymer materials in the field of water treatment is receiving increasing attention [...].With the increasing severity of global water pollution, research on the application of functional polymer materials in the field of water treatment is receiving increasing attention [...].

The poor water solubility, large particle size, and low accessibility of cellulose, the most abundant bioresource, have restricted its generalization to carbon dots (CDs). Herein, nitrogen and sulfur co-doped fluorescent carbon dots (N, S-CDs) were hydrothermally synthesized using cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) as a carbon precursor, exhibiting a small particle size and excellent aqueous dispersion. Thiourea was selected as a nitrogen and sulfur dopant to introduce abundant fluorescent functional groups into N, S-CDs. The resulting N, S-CDs exhibited nanoscale size (6.2 nm), abundant functional groups, bright blue fluorescence, high quantum yield (QY = 27.4%), and high overall yield (16.2%). The excellent optical properties of N, S-CDs endowed it to potentially display a highly sensitive fluorescence “turn off” response to rutin. The fluorescence response for rutin allowed a wide linear range of 0–40 mg·L−1, with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.02 μM, which revealed the potential of N, S-CDs as a rapid and simple sensing platform for rutin detection. In addition, the sustainable and large-scale production of the N, S-CDs in this study paves the way for the successful high-value utilization of cellulose.

In response to the shortage of petroleum resources and the growing need for sustainable development, cellulose-based amphiphilic copolymers have emerged as a new generation of value-added functional nanostructures from biomass resources. In this article, 17 amphiphilic hydroxyethyl cellulose-based graft copolymers with different side chains, including poly(lactide), poly(ε-caprolactone) and poly(p-dioxanone), were synthesized via homogeneous ring opening polymerization in ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride and characterized by FT-IR, ¹H NMR, thermogravimetric analysis and gel permeation chromatography. The resultant copolymers can self-assemble into micelles with a low critical micelle concentration that varies in the range of 0.03–0.24 mg/ml. TEM observations revealed the obtained micelles had a spherical and well-distributed morphology, and DLS analysis showed the nanoscaled sizes were between 40 and 150 nm. These HEC-based micelles can be used as nano-sized vesicles and have great latent forces in drug delivery systems.

In this paper, a novel biodegradable biomass-based amphiphile was prepared by direct grafting copolymerization of dissolved pulp with hydrophobic poly ( l -lactide) in ionic liquids BmimCl. The molecular structures of the obtained copolymers were confirmed with 1 H-NMR, 13 C-NMR and 2D HSQC NMR, and their physical properties were studied by TGA and XRD analysis. The self-assembly behaviors of these amphiphilies in aqueous solution was characterized by fluorescence spectrum and their critical micelle concentrations (CMC) were determined to be in the range of 0.326–0.062 mg/mL. TEM observations and DLS analysis revealed that the pulp-derived micelles had spherical and uniform morphology and small diameters (25–125 nm). It was also found that the surface tension of these copolymers solution firstly decreased dramatically with increasing concentration and then approached to a plateau value when the concentration was above their CMC value. MTT assay showed that the pulp-derived amphiphilic micelles exhibited good biocompatibility, which informed that these micelles could be expected to be used in biological regions, especially for the hydrophobic drug delivery system.

In this paper, a series of cellulose-based hydrophobic associating polymers were prepared by homogeneous acylation of microcrystalline cellulose with long-chain acyl chlorides including octanoyl, lauroyl, and palmitoly chlorides in the solvent of N,N -dimethylacetamide/lithium chloride (DMAc/LiCl) using pyridine as acid scavenger. Through controlling the chain length of fatty acyl chlorides and the molar ratio of acyl chlorides vs anhydroglucose unit, the hydrophobic cellulose derivatives with degrees of substitution in the range of 0.02–1.75 were successfully obtained. The chemical structures and properties of these hydrophobic derivatives were characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR, CP/MAS 13 C NMR, X-ray diffraction, and the thermogravimetry analysis. It was also found that, the cellulose-based polymers achieved an excellent solubility in organic solvents, such as benzene, methylbenzene, and pyridine, with the introduction of hydrophobic side chain into the cellulose backbone. Furthermore, it was found that these hydrophobic cellulose derivatives could self-assemble into spherical nanoparticles in aqueous solution, which indicates a tremendous potential of applications in pharmaceutical and medical fields.

The development and evaluation of Large Language Models (LLMs) has primarily focused on their task-solving capabilities, with recent models even surpassing human performance in some areas. However, this focus often neglects whether machine-generated language matches the human level of diversity, in terms of vocabulary choice, syntactic construction, and expression of meaning, raising questions about whether the fundamentals of language generation have been fully addressed. This paper emphasizes the importance of examining the preservation of human linguistic richness by language models, given the concerning surge in online content produced or aided by LLMs. We adapt a comprehensive framework for evaluating LLMs from various linguistic diversity perspectives including lexical, syntactic, and semantic dimensions. Using this framework, we benchmark several state-of-the-art LLMs across all diversity dimensions, and conduct an in-depth analysis for syntactic diversity. Finally, we analyze how the design, development, and deployment choices of LLMs impact the linguistic diversity of their outputs, focusing on the creative task of story generation.

In this work, novel lignin-based nanoparticles (LβNPs) with high acidic tolerance were successfully prepared via electrostatic interaction between β-alanine and lignin nanoparticles. The effects of the mass ratio of lignin nanoparticles to β-alanine and pH value on the morphology and particle sizes of LβNPs were investigated with the aim of obtaining the ideal nanoparticles. The optimized LβNPs were spherical in shape with an average particle size of 41.1 ± 14.5 nm and exhibited outstanding structure stability under high acidic conditions (pH < 4). Subsequently, Pickering emulsions stabilized by LβNPs were prepared using olive oil as the oil phase. Additionally, the effects of pH value, droplet size, morphology, and storage stability on Pickering emulsions were also analyzed. The emulsions displayed excellent stability, and were stable against strongly acidic conditions (pH < 4) after 30 days of storage. The study presented a promising approach to preparing lignin-based nanoparticles with high acidic tolerance (an ideal type of stabilizer to prepare emulsions), and exhibited extremely high potential application values in the fields of drug delivery, food additives, and oily wastewater treatment.

Biomass-based aerogels have received attention these days due to their environmentally friendly and easily degradable nature. However, aerogel production is challenged by the generation of acid in aerogel manufacturing. This work aims at understanding how acid originating from biomass would impact aerogel production. In this study, alkali pre-extraction was carried out to demonstrate how the acidic substances released from poplar in a green inorganic molten salt hydrate solvent (LiBr·3H2O) would impact the properties of biomass-based aerogels. To understand the impact of lignin on aerogel production, the aerogel production was carried out on lignin-free biomass. The results confirmed that alkali pretreatment of biomass could be an effective method to accelerate the production of biomass-based aerogels. The biomass and particle size primarily affected the properties and microstructure of aerogels. Also, lignin has a substantial adverse effect on such aerogel production. Therefore, selecting suitable alkali treatment conditions, biomass content and particle size have crucial effects on the preparation of lignin-containing aerogels and lignin-free aerogels.

This study focused on the structural differences of lignin after pyridine–acetic acid–water (PAW) and dioxane–acidic water (DAW) purification processes. These structural differences included the S/G ratio, condensed structure, weight-average (MW) molecular weights, β-O-4 linkages and sugar content. The chemical structure of the isolated crude lignin (CL), PAW purified lignin (PPL) and DAW purified lignin (DPL) was elucidated using quantitative 13C NMR, 2D-HSQC NMR spectra, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The results showed that the PPL fractions contain fewer condensed structures, higher S/G ratios, more β-O-4 linkages, higher average MW and lower thermal degradation properties compared to the CL and DPL fractions. Furthermore, the PAW process was more selective in removing condensed units and enriching S-type lignin from CL compared to the DAW process. These results provide valuable information for understanding which purification process is more suitable to be applied for lignin.