Structure and properties of tempo-oxidized cotton fibers

In this paper, the influence of the catalytic oxidation using water soluble and stable nitroxyl radical 2,2′,6,6′-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl (TEMPO) on structure and properties of cotton fibers was studied. In particular, the selective TEMPO-mediated oxidation has become very interesting way for introduction of functional groups into cellulose fibers with the aim to obtain oxycellulose fibers with specific properties. Unmodified and modified fibers were characterized in terms of weight loss values, introduced functional groups and crystallinity index. Also, oxidized fibers were characterized in terms of the sorption, morphological, and physico-mechanical properties. The TEMPO-oxidized cotton fibers show a minimum increase of fineness (from 1.32 to 1.28 dtex) and increase of crystallinity index (up to 91.9%), while the tensile strength of fibers decreases (up to 10.82 cN/tex). By the TEMPO-mediated oxidation of cotton fibers significant amount of carboxyl groups (up to 0.795 mmol/g cell) can be introduced into cellulose fibers. Introduced hydrophilic carboxyl groups increases the sorption properties of oxidized fibers, that can be used directly or for further chemical modification.