Transition to Reinforced State by Percolating Domains of Intercalated Brush-Modified Cellulose Nanocrystals and Poly(butadiene) in Cross-Linked Composites Based on Thiol-ene Click Chemistry
The classic nanocomposite approach aims at percolation of low fraction of exfoliated individual reinforcing nanoscale elements within a polymeric matrix. By contrast, many of the mechanically excellent biological nanocomposites involve self-assembled and space-filled structures of hard reinforcing and soft toughening domains, with high weight fraction of reinforcements. Here we inspect a new concept toward mimicking such structures by studying whether percolation of intercalated domains consisting of alternating rigid and reinforcing, and soft rubbery domains could allow a transition to a reinforced state. Toward that, we present the functionalization of rigid native cellulose nanocrystals …
Cellulose-inorganic hybrids of strongly reduced thermal conductivity
Abstract The employment of atomic layer deposition and spin coating techniques for preparing inorganic-organic hybrid multilayer structures of alternating ZnO-CNC layers was explored in this study. Helium ion microscopy and X-ray reflectivity showed the superlattice formation for the nanolaminate structures and atomic force microscopy established the efficient control of the CNCs surface coverage on the Al-doped ΖnO by manipulating the concentration of the spin coating solution. Thickness characterization of the hybrid structures was performed via both ellipsometry and X-ray reflectivity and the thermal conductivity was examined by time domain thermoreflectance technique. It appears that ev…
Generic Method for Modular Surface Modification of Cellulosic Materials in Aqueous Medium by Sequential Click-Reaction and Adsorption
A generic approach for heterogeneous surface modification of cellulosic materials in aqueous medium, applicable for a wide range of functionalizations, is presented. In the first step, carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) modified with azide or alkyne functionality, was adsorbed on a cellulosic substrate, thus, providing reactive sites for azide–alkyne cycloaddition click reactions. In the second step, functional units with complementary click units were reacted on the cellulose surface, coated by the click-modified CMC. Selected model functionalizations on diverse cellulosic substrates are shown to demonstrate the generality of the approach. The concept by sequentially combining the robust physic…
Directed Assembly of Cellulose Nanocrystals in Their Native Solid-State Template of a Processed Fiber Cell Wall
Funding Information: I.S. thanks The Academy of Finland (grant no. 300364) for funding this work. C.D. acknowledges funding from FAPESP (grant 13/07932‐6). P.A.P. thanks the Emil Aaltonen Foundation and Academy of Finland (grant no. 315768) for funding and ESRF for beamtime at beamline D2am (experiment 02‐01‐885). Rita Hatakka is acknowledged for her assistance with the GPC measurements. Work of M.L. was supported by the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation. The work is a part of the FinnCERES Bioeconomy ecosystem. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Authors. Macromolecular Rapid Communications published by Wiley-VCH GmbH Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved. Nanoparticle ass…