Cellulose nascent crystals extracted from biomass (e.g. wood, jute or cotton) through TEMPO-mediated oxidation are low cost, renewable, biocompatible and high performance materials that can be used as effective barrier layer in filtration membranes. However, important aspects of the fundamental structures of these cellulose nanocrystals are still ambiguous. This study demonstrated the use of synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) technique to characterize the structure of cellulose nanofibers in suspensions from various origins and of different concentrations. The results indicated that the data could be best fitted by an analytical expression derived for a polydisperse ribbon model having near rectangular cross section. In addition, wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) data of freeze-dried cellulose nanofibers was analyzed using a modified Debye analysis technique that confirmed the ribbon nature of the cellulose nanocrystals and provided details about the arrangement of the cellulose molecular chains inside the ribbons.

Structure of cellulose nascent crystals studied by X-ray scattering

245th National Meeting (2013)

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