The conversion from cellulose I to cellulose II in NaOH mercerization performed in alcohol–water systems: An X-ray powder diffraction study

Abstract The slurry-mercerization (SM) processes in 2-propanol–water and 2-propanol–ethanol–water and wet-mass-mercerization (WMM) process in ethanol–water solvents are investigated. Based on X-ray diffraction measurements in the earlier reports, we have derived a mathematical method to evaluate more exactly the conversion of cellulose I (CI) to cellulose II (CII) and used it to survey the effects of different alkali treatments on cellulose crystals. This method is very useful when the crystal system changes in a certain set of experiments are compared with each other. The optimal alcohol concentration in SM processes was found to be 80–92 w/w-% in 2-propanol–water solution, 85–90 w/w-% in …