The Structure and Mechanical Behavior of Cellulose Fibers

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Abstract
The present reticular concept of the internal structure of cellulose gels is inadequate from several points of view. Principally, it fails to take sufficient account of purely energetic effects in the mechanical behavior of the gels, and is based primarily upon entropy changes. Further more, the marked influence of degree of polymerization and of concentration of cellulose solutions upon the course of coagulation has been largely neglected. The structure here proposed is a double network of macromolecules—a primary network, formed by the assembly of meshes the knots of which are small crystallites, and the sides of which are bundles of macromolecules, bound more or less closely to one another through their convolu tions, comprising the secondary network. This structure makes it possible to introduce into the system the changes in internal energy hitherto lacking. We thus obtain a better interpretation of the experimental facts and are able to fill in certain gaps in the former theory, taking into account present ideas regarding the state of aggregation of macromolecules in solutions and the density of the amorphous regions in cellulose.

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