1,2-Propanediol-cellulose-acrylamide graft copolymers (PCACs) were developed for enhanced oil recovery. They were prepared with acrylamide and 1,2-propanediol (PDO)-cellulose, which was formed through the addition of glycols to cellulose by the Shotten-Baumann reaction between 3-chloro-1,2-propanediol and cellulose. The graft copolymerization was initiated with a redox system between Ce4+ and glycols in cellulose. The infrared spectrum of PDO-cellulose had some characteristic absorption bands around 2960 (vC-H) and 1050 cm(-1) (vC-O) that also appeared for the PDO group and pyranose ring of cellulose, respectively. The rate of Ce4+ consumption by PDO-cellulose was investigated through the calculation of the overall kinetic constant from the slopes of In(D - D-R) versus time (where D is the absorbance and D, is the absorbance of the original polysaccharide solution) The results showed that PDO-cellulose had high reactivity and that there were two mechanisms of oxidation by Ce4+ with PDO-cellulose. (C) 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.