Cellulose substrates, electrical conductivity

A kinetic study of the hydrolysis of woods and purified plant polysaccharides in 75 % sulphuric acid was monitored by electrical conductivity measurements. The coefficients of resistance of all polysaccharide substrates increased with increasing hydrolysis time. From these measurements, the degrees of polymerization of cellulose, xylan, and inulin were estimated to be 1900, 66, and 16 respectively. The polysaccharide components of various woods and pulps can be hydrolysed with trifluoracetic acid which, in contrast to sulphuric acid hydrolysis, does not require a neutralization step since trifluoracetic acid is volatile. The presence of lignin in the wood samples impeded the hydrolysis of the polysaccharides, requiring longer reaction times and correction factors to compensate for loss of monosaccharide by degradation reactions. 

The electrical conductivity of cellulose substrates increased from negligible values to 3000 2 m [105] in aligned CNTs, it reached values of up to 800 2 m [106], while the conductivity of the sol-gel aluminoborosiUcate was less than 10 2 m . This strong change is especially obvious because of the electrical isolating nature of silica. 

Most of the published work on MFCs has considered power production from soluble substrates. However, particulate substrates can serve as substrates for electricity production in an MFC. Recent studies have shown power generation in MFCs from chitin and cellulose Niessen et al. 2005 Ren et al. 2007 Rezaei et al. 2007), and there are new studies being conducted on power generation from sludges and the removal efficiencies of MFCs for particulates in wastewaters. Thus, there will soon be much more data available on the potential for power production from particulate materials. Does this... 

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