Thin film optoelectronic devices with high transparency and flexibility/stretchability have drawn much attention in the past several years. Recent success in this area includes the fabrication of transparent flexible electrodes and fully functioning electronic devices, such as transistors, generators, solar cells, and batteries. The layers of these devices are required to be some subset of mechanically robust, transparent, light weight, hydrophilic, hydrophobic, electrically conductive, high surface area, etc. However, the source for many of these films is non-sustainable in that they are derived from petroleum or are difficult-to-produce inorganic materials; this can substantially increase costs and environmental impact. In addition, most of these materials are difficult to chemically modify, which is a bottleneck to improving properties. Here, we have developed a simple robust method for preparing ultra-thin nanofibrous bacterial cellulose films via cultivation of the strain Gluconacenetobacter xylinus in shallow static liquid cultures. Physical properties, including morphology, roughness, thickness, transmittance, crystallinity index and average pore size are characterized by atomic force microscopy, UV-vis spectrophotometry, scanning electron microscopy and wide angle X ray diffraction. The thickness of bacterial cellulose mats was varied by controlling the culture broth depth so that films with predictable uniform thickness (between 280 and 2800 nm) result. The crystallinity index of these films was 92%. The highest transmittance mat, with thickness between 300 and 600 nm, was above 90% in the visible spectral region and as high as 96% in the near-infrared regime. To the best of our knowledge, this transmittance is much higher than any other flexible biobased materials with a fibrous network structure.

Biosynthesis of ultra thin nano fibrous bacterial cellulose (BC) film for new applications

254th National Meeting (2017)

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