Mannans are widely distributed in primary and secondary plant cell walls. This work investigated the effects of galactosyl side groups on mannan adsorption onto cellulose with a quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D), surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The QCM-D and SPR results clearly showed that the amount of adsorbed mannans increased as the number of galactosyl side groups along the mannan backbones decreased. The water content of adsorbed mannan films was independent of the number of branching groups. Urea was applied in the QCM-D experiments to probe the relationship between water content and the branching structure of the mannans. Urea adsorption had little effect on the water content of mannan films. However, mannan films became more rigid after urea adsorption. The assembly of mannans was addressed to explain the mechanism of mannan adsorption onto cellulose.

Adsorption of mannans onto cellulose: Effect of branching on cell wall polymer assembly

247th National Meeting (2014)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.