New Developments in Dissolving and Processing of Cellulose in Ionic Liquids

Ionic liquids (IL) are new direct dissolving systems for cellulose characterized by unique dissolving properties and simple technical handling. Selected IL-systems are non toxic and chemically as well as physically neutral which represents an advantage as compared to the commonly used direct solvent N-methylmorpholine-N-oxide (NMMO). Fibres can easily be prepared by coagulation in water. The BASF company as a leading producer of ionic liquids investigates the technical conversion of the preparation of cellulosic fibres using ionic liquids in cooperation with the Institut fur Textilchemie und Chemiefasern (ITCF), Denkendorf and the Thuringisches Institut fur Textil- und Kunststoff-Forschung (TITK), Rudolstadt. The major targets of this project are the selection of appropriate IL-systems, the IL recycling, rheology of spinning dopes and the charcterization of resulting fibre profiles. Essential results of this work and the potential for establishing a technical-scale process are summarized.