Herein, we design and prepare cellulose-based ratiometric fluorescent materials with superior amine-response, which offers the real-time and visual detection of seafood freshness. Through utilizing the reactive hydroxyl groups along cellulose chains, we covalently immobilize the fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) as indicator and protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) as internal reference onto cellulose acetate (CA), respectively. Subsequently, a series of dual-emission solid fluorescent materials are achieved by simply blending green emitting CA-FITC with red-emitting CA-PpIX with varying ratios. They exhibit a sensitive, color-responsive, rapid and linear response to ammonia in a wide range of 5.0 ppm to 2.5 × 10⁴ ppm. Benefiting from the excellent solubility and processibility of cellulose derivatives, the as-prepared materials are readily processed into different material forms, including printing ink, coating, flexible film, and nanofibrous membrane. The electrospun nanofibrous membrane is successfully employed as a low-cost, high-contrasting, quick-responsive fluorescent trademark for visual monitoring the freshness of shrimp and crab.

Herein, this review article aims to provide a relatively comprehensive summary of research progress in the dissolution and processing of cellulose with ionic liquids.

The dissolution mechanism of cellulose in ionic liquids has been investigated by using cellobiose and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate (EmimAc) as a model system under various conditions with conventional and variable-temperature NMR spectroscopy. In DMSO-d₆ solution, NMR data of the model system clearly suggest that hydrogen bonding is formed between hydroxyls of cellobiose and both anion and cation of EmimAc. The CH₃COO⁻ anion favors the formation of hydrogen bonds with hydrogen atoms of hydroxyls, and the aromatic protons in bulky cation [Emim]⁺ , especially the most acidic H2, prefer to associate with the oxygen atoms of hydroxyls with less steric hindrance, while after acetylation of all hydroxyls in cellobiose the interactions between cellobiose octaacetate and EmimAc become very weak, implying that hydrogen bonding is the major reason of cellobiose solvation in EmimAc. Meanwhile the stoichiometric ratio of EmimAc/hydroxyl is estimated to be between 3:4 and 1:1 in the primary solvation shell, suggesting that there should be one anion or cation to form hydrogen bonds with two hydroxyl groups simultaneously. In situ and variable-temperature NMR spectra suggest the above mechanism also works in the real system.