The modifications of the cellulose fibres were carried out under heterogeneous conditions by grafting differing length hydrocarbon chains bearing amino terminal functionalities.
After delignification and treatment with a 10% NaOH solution, the cellulose fibres were first swollen in water and then solvent exchanged with DMF. Thereafter, the fibres were introduced in a three neck flask containing a mixture of toluene/DMF (60/40 vol), equipped with a Dean-Stark system, and kept under reflux until all the residual water retained by the fibers had been removed by azeotropic distillation. The suspension was then cooled to 60 ◦ C, and CDI was added under dry nitrogen atmosphere and kept under mag- netic stirring for 3 h. Next, the reaction mixture was rapidly filtered and washed twice with dry toluene in order to eliminate all th