Water sorption to hydroxyl and carboxylic acid groups in Carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) studied with NIR-spectroscopy

In carbohydrate systems which contain polar groups such as hydroxyl and carboxylic acid groups, water molecules are adsorbed in a specific way which varies with the type of polar group. Near infrared Spectroscopy (NIR) combined with multivariate statistical analysis was used to study the interactions between water molecules and carboxymethylated cellulose (CMC) with various degrees of substitution of the carboxylic acid groups, in two ionic forms (CMC-Na and CMC-Ca). The adsorbed water molecules were clearly influenced by the counterion; i.e. the nature of the ion-pair. A principle component analysis (PCA) identified variations in the registered spectra related to: the nature of the counter-ion, the degree of substitution (DS), the relative humidity (RH) and the type of polar group to which water was adsorbed. It was, possible furthermore, through the use of partial least square analysis (PLS), to extract spectral information related to the non-freezing bound water adsorbed on hydroxyl and carboxyl groups respectively. Loading spectra indicated that the obtained spectral information indeed correlated to the two kinds of polar groups studied (hydroxyl groups and carboxylic acid groups). The results support the view that, in the humidity range of 0-100%, water molecules are specifically adsorbed to individual polar groups, which characteristics are dependent on the nature of the polar group.