Studies of polymer-cellulose blends prepared from solution

The conditions under which cellulose-cellulose triacetate (CTA) and cellulose-poly(acrylonitrile) (PAN) blends can be prepared from solution, are described in this paper. These two systems form transparent films when the blend contains less than 50% PAN or 60% CTA. Young's modulus, tensile strength, and elongation at rupture were measured for these blends. These values usually are between those of the corresponding homopolymers, except for the blend containing 10% polymer (PAN or CTA) which has a tensile strength value larger than that of cellulose. This result seems to indicate a certain level of compatibility for this blend. However, x-ray measurements indicate the presence of two crystal structures for these systems, suggesting that compatibility does not exist at the molecular level, in the crystalline fraction of the samples.