CONTEXT

Cellulose chemistry has proved to be of great interest for tissue engineering, namely cartilage. Development of such chemistry has been somewhat hampered by the difficulty involved when functionalizing it due to its poor solubility. Indeed, it dissolves only in few organic solvents, and the pending cellulose hydroxyl groups, which are the key to any functionalization, are difficult to access to by reactants. Besides, functionalizing cellulose in suspension (and not properly dissolved) will yield a heterogeneous material, which is as challenge for many applications.

In recent years, however, the development of a new generation of solvents, namely ionic liquids, has offered new perspectives to the chemist. Examples of cellulose dissolution in these solvents have today been published. At the present time, however, literature offers only a few examples of cellulose functionalization in ionic liquids, and only functionalization by organics.