The bulk of the cellulose currently employed by industry is isolated from wood through Kraft pulping, a process which traditionally involves a barrage of environmentally detrimental chemicals and is undeniably ‘non-green.’ In this report we present a simple and novel alternative approach for the processing of lignocellulosic materials that relies on their solubility in solvent systems based on the ionic liquid (IL) 1-n-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([C₄mim]Cl). Dissolution profiles for woods of different hardness are presented, making emphasis on the direct analysis of the cellulosic material and lignin content in the resulting liquors by means of conventional ¹³C NMR techniques. We also show that cellulose can be readily reconstituted from the IL-based wood liquors in fair yields by the addition of a variety of precipitating solvents. Spectroscopic and thermogravimetric studies indicate that the polysaccharide obtained in this manner is virtually free of lignin and hemicellulose and has characteristics that are comparable to those of pure cellulose samples subjected to similar processing conditions.

Banana pulps at any ripening stage can be completely dissolved in solvent systems based on the ionic liquid (IL) 1-n-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([C₄mim]Cl), and variations in the carbohydrate composition of the fruit analyzed directly on the resulting solutions using high-resolution ¹³C NMR spectroscopy.

Uruguay es un pequeño país sudamericano en el cual la enseñanza de la química está centralizada, desde 1929, en la Facultad de Química de la Universidad de la República. Una tradición centrada en la enseñanza de la comunidad académica de esta Facultad comenzó a virar hacia una fuerte importancia de la tarea investigativa en forma coincidente con la llegada del profesor Giovanni Marini Bettolo al país en 1948. En este trabajo se estudia la incidencia del profesor y de los investigadores entrenados por él y sus sucesores. Constituye una aproximación preliminar al estudio de la relevancia cuantitativa y cualitativa de este conjunto de docentes en la producción global de la investigación en química del país, a modo de avance o primer paso que siente las bases de investigaciones futuras sobre la química uruguaya.