Radiation activation of cotton-cellulose prior to alkali treatment

The effect of alkali treatment on preirradiated cotton-cellulose was investigated using diffuse reflectance Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (DRIFT) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The effect of two kinds of alkali solutions (NaOH and TMAH, tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide) on the crystalline structure of irradiated cotton-cellulose was compared. The transformation of cellulose I to cellulose II was observed applying DRIFT technique by the increase of the absorbance at 896 cm-1 and XRD. The results obtained by the two methods were in good correlation. An increase in carbonyl content (as detected by FTIR by measuring the absorbance at 1740 cm-1) was found in the samples due to oxidative degradation.