Cellulose fibers constitute an important renewable material that serves many commercial applications in non-food, paper, textiles and composite materials. Grafting is a fascinating field of surface chemical modification of cellulose with unlimited prospects. By grafting copolymers onto cellulose several functional and property benefits can be attained in addition to the unique properties of the original cellulose precursor. Among chemical methods, redox-initiated grafting offers excellent possibilities since in the presence of redox systems protocol implementation in aqueous media can be carried out under mild conditions and with limited side reactions. Fenton's reagent (Fe⁺²-H₂O₂) is a well-known redox initiator and has been successfully utilized in grafting vinyl monomers onto different substrates but so far has not been utilized in the case of cellulosic substrates.

We used Fenton's-reagent-initiated grafting to graft various acrylic polymers on nanocellulose substrates. The percentage of grafting and efficiency have been determined as functions of various reaction variables by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-Ray diffraction analysis, X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and contact angle measurements and scanning. Our preliminary results will be presented and discussed.