Key Laboratory of Rubber-Plastics, Ministry of Education/Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Rubber-plastics, Qingdao University of Science & Technology (QUST), Qingdao, 266042, China; School of Polymer Science and Engineering, QUST, Qingdao, 266042, China.
Key Laboratory of Rubber-Plastics, Ministry of Education/Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Rubber-plastics, Qingdao University of Science & Technology (QUST), Qingdao, 266042, China; School of Polymer Science and Engineering, QUST, Qingdao, 266042, China.
Carbohydr Polym. 2020 Dec 1;249:116835. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2020.116835. Epub 2020 Jul 31.
Tunicate cellulose, extracted from the marine animal, has drawn increasing attention as the high crystallinity and aspect ratio. However, it is hard to prepare tunicate cellulose nanocrystals (tCNCs) with narrow size distribution in the traditional way, especially for the carboxylated samples, which also affects their lyotropic liquid crystal behavior to a certain extent. Herein, carboxylated tCNCs with uniform nanoscale dimensions and high surface charges density were prepared through ammonium persulfate (APS) oxidation and ultrasonic post-processing. Of particular interest, the formation of carboxylated tCNCs lyotropic chiral nematic liquid crystals was observed for the first time, which displayed obvious birefringence and fingerprint texture. Meanwhile, it was found that the critical concentration of phase separation for tCNCs suspension was around 3.5 wt% from the phase diagram. This study provides an efficient way to fabricate carboxylated tCNCs, and the self-assembly properties may lead to great potential applications in constructing advanced functional materials.
被囊纤维素是从海洋动物中提取的，具有高结晶度和纵横比，因此越来越受到关注。然而，用传统方法很难制备具有较窄尺寸分布的被囊纤维素纳米晶（tCNC），特别是对于羧化样品，这也在一定程度上影响了它们的溶致液晶行为。本文通过过硫酸铵（APS）氧化和超声后处理制备了具有均匀纳米尺寸和高表面电荷密度的羧化 tCNC。特别有趣的是，首次观察到了具有各向异性手性向列液晶的羧化 tCNC 的形成，其表现出明显的双折射和指纹纹理。同时，从相图中发现 tCNC 悬浮液的相分离临界浓度约为 3.5wt%。该研究为制备羧化 tCNC 提供了一种有效的方法，其自组装特性可能在构建先进功能材料方面具有很大的应用潜力。
