Cellulose modification using ionic liquids

The aim of this project was to investigate ways of chemically modifying cellulose using ionic liquids. Cellulose is a readily available, naturally occurring, polymeric carbohydrate which is ideal for chemical modification owing to the high density of its functional groups. However, it is insoluble in all common organic solvents. Therefore, interest has recently turned to the use of a novel class of solvents, ionic liquids, which have been found to dissolve cellulose. Initially, studies were undertaken into the acylation of simple carbohydrates using a Lewis acidic choline based ionic liquid, (ZnCl_2)_2ChCl. It was found that the yields obtained were comparable to those achieved when traditional solvents and catalysts have been used. It was also found that when only one equivalent of acylating agent was used in comparison to the carbohydrate, all of the carbohydrates hydroxyl groups were acylated. This was thought to be unique to this ionic liquid system. The acetylation of cellulose was also studied in (ZnCl_2)_2ChCl. Here, it was discovered that the ionic liquid alters the morphology of cellulose by wetting or dissolution thus enabling a range of acetylated products to be produced. Research into the cationic modification of cellulose in an ionic liquid based on chlorcholine chloride (CIChCl) and urea was also undertaken. In this case, it was found that the ionic liquid could act as both the reagent and solvent. It was shown using this system that all the available (surface) hydroxyl groups on cellulose were modified and that the material produced was significantly more hydrophilic than unmodified cellulose. Finally, preliminary investigations were undertaken into other potential surface modifications of cellulose in ionic liquids

Table S1: Summary of the hypotheses from Microbes in the Anthropocene: spillover of agriculturally selected bacteria and their impact on natural ecosystems

Hypotheses and predictions of the landscape-level impact of agriculture on soil microbial communities, and the consequences for ecosystem functioning in adjacent unmodified environment

community growth and diversity during evolution experiment

Microbial community growth rates (total change in OD600 over 24 to 96 hours) measured in triplicate at two assay temperatures every 9 days for 81 days. Shannon diversity and community evenness are both calculated for experimental blocks 1, 3 and 5 from samples taken on days 27, 54 and 81. Time is reported in hours. Temperature reported in degrees Celsius

biolog metabolism data during evolution experiment

Community carbohydrate use during experimental evolution. Carbohydrate use (with threshold of OD600 > 0.2) for starting community and across sampling days 27, 54 and 81 and change in carbohydrate use. Column, biologcarb, refers to the carbohydrate at that well position on biolog GN2 microplate

Isolate and community local adaptation

Isolate and community local adaptation at day 81 of experimental evolution

LH-PCR, Ecoplate, CO2 and Dung mass loss data

LH-PCR, Ecoplate, CO2 and Dung mass loss dat

Populationdynamics

Populationdynamic

FiegnaEvoAssay

Table of data from assays of the growth of bacterial isolates over 96 hours. Species gives a number for the focal isolate, mix is the community composition, replicate indicates 3 experimental replicates, diversity is the number of species in the starting culture of the community, environment indicates the growth medium, survival indicates whether the focal isolate could be extracted from the final community or not, sp2 to sp63 indicate which other species were present in the final community, T0 to T96 are the number of cells per ml of each isolate during the growth assays, Div.end is the final number of species recovered from each community

EcoEvodynamics

EcoEvodynamic

Evolution

Evolutio