Process for manufacturing lithium carboxymethyl cellulose
View Patent ↗Prepare lithium carboxymethyl cellulose by treating sodium carboxymethyl cellulose with a weak acid to form an acid from of carboxymethyl cellulose and then treating the acid form of the carboxymethyl cellulose with lithium chloride.
1. A process comprising the following steps: (a) treating sodium carboxymethyl cellulose with a weak acid to form an acid form of carboxymethyl cellulose; and (b) treating the acid form of carboxymethyl cellulose with lithium chloride to form lithium carboxymethyl cellulose.
2. The process of claim 1 , further characterized by the weak acid being selected from a group consisting of acetic acid, formic acid, hydrofluoric acid, nitrous acid, hydrocyanic acid and hydrogen sulfate ion.
3. The process of claim 1 , further characterized by the weak acid being acetic acid.
4. The process of claim 1 , further characterized by an absence of strong acid during the forming of carboxymethyl cellulose in step (a).
5. The process of claim 1 , further characterized by the treatments of step (a) and step (b) being done in an aqueous solution.
6. The process of claim 5 , further characterized by the aqueous solution comprising alcohol.
7. The process of claim 1 , further characterized by the sodium carboxymethyl cellulose having a degree of substitution in a range of 0.4 to 2.0.