ABSTRACT
In recent years, the self-assembled nanomicelles of amphiphilic cellulose-based graft copolymers have emerged as a new generation of value-added functional nanostructures (Li et al. 2008, Yan et al. 2009a). The amphiphilic cellulose micelles were found able to solubilize and encapsulate poorly soluble drugs and functional materials for improved applications in versatile elds including drug delivery, bioimaging, sensing, and catalysis. Compared with the synthetic amphiphilic block copolymers, the cellulose-based graft copolymer amphiphiles have many promising properties, for example, renewability, good biocompatibility, biodegradability, nontoxicity, and non-immunogenicity (Hassani et al. 2012). As the most abundant biomass in nature, cellulose is especially advantageous due to its large availability and low price.
