Kondo T, Togawa E, Brown R M
Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, P.O. Box 16, Tsukuba Norin, Ibaraki 305-8687, Japan.
Biomacromolecules. 2001 Winter;2(4):1324-30. doi: 10.1021/bm0101318.
Native cellulose consists of a set of parallel chains composed of glucose. Most of the time, these chains are highly ordered and form a structure that is known as a microfibril. On the other hand, highly crystalline forms of cellulose are more difficult to process and often are unpredictable in their behavior. If an ordered but noncrystalline form of cellulose could be produced, this would greatly extend the possibilities of usage of cellulose to new areas. In this paper, we have produced such a new supermolecular structure of cellulose, called nematic ordered cellulose. The unique characteristics of this supermolecular structure of cellulose have been clarified using various kinds of physicochemical analyses. Using a high-resolution transmission electron microscopic approach, we have also imaged the single glucan chains, demonstrating the close but nonprecise association usually found in crystalline biopolymers.
天然纤维素由一组由葡萄糖组成的平行链构成。大多数情况下，这些链高度有序，形成一种被称为微原纤维的结构。另一方面，高结晶形式的纤维素更难加工，其行为往往不可预测。如果能够生产出一种有序但非结晶形式的纤维素，这将极大地拓展纤维素在新领域的应用可能性。在本文中，我们制备出了这样一种新型纤维素超分子结构，称为向列相有序纤维素。通过各种物理化学分析，已阐明了这种纤维素超分子结构的独特特性。利用高分辨率透射电子显微镜方法，我们还对单个葡聚糖链进行了成像，展示了在结晶生物聚合物中通常发现的紧密但不精确的缔合。
