Novel cellulosic gel preparation for using in electro-responsive applications

Electroactive-papers (EAPaps) are paper that used in the field of electro-responsive applications, consisting primarily of a cellulose. 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride (BMIMCl) is an interesting ionic liquid that acts as an effective cellulose solvent for EAPap due to its high solubility without chain derivatization, less chain degradation, and stability in electro-responsive applications. In our work, physical and chemical cellulose gels were fabricated and studied for the effects of varying crosslinking ratio (CR) with glutaraldehyde (GA) as the crosslinking agent. The crosslinking reaction conversion could be increased by increasing the CR; the reaction products are ketone linkages and by-product water molecules. A difference in optical properties could be observed and related to the differing amounts of ketone linkages, as confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy: Attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR), and the degradation temperature (T-d). All of the prepared gels show no significant differences in electrical conductivity; however they can be classified in the level of semiconductors. Our paper-gels showed potential characteristics towards electro-responsive applications as the ionic migration is a promising mechanism and with less preparation time (< 14 hours).