Confinement-Induced Ordering and Self-Folding of Cellulose Nanofibrils.

ABSTRACT: Cellulose is a pervasive polymer, displaying hierarchical lengthscales and exceptional strength and stiffness. Cellulose's complex organization, however, also hinders the detailed understanding of the assembly, mesoscopic properties, and structure of individual cellulose building blocks. This study combines nanolithography with atomic force microscopy to unveil the properties and structure of single cellulose nanofibrils under weak geometrical confinement. By statistical analysis of the fibril morphology, it emerges that confinement induces both orientational ordering and self-folding of the fibrils. Excluded volume simulations reveal that this effect does not arise from a fibril population bias applied by the confining slit, but rather that the fibril conformation itself changes under con

SUBMITTER: Smith KB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6382315 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature