The relationship of film formation and hierarchy of films from cellulose particles is often correlated by observing input and output of the material. Many aspects of film formation remain unelucidated such as what happens dynamically between formation of the wet structure towards the dried hierarchy. The purpose of this work has been to add hierarchy to nanocellulose films with the emphasis in controlled assembly. We have therefore 1) visualized and quantified flow of cellulose nanocrystals in shear and related that to recovery time of the sheared structure. 2) Introduced structure-in-structure in cellulose nanocrystal films via emulsion templating and elucidated it via X-ray imaging. Findings on the shear and recovery of cellulose nanocrystals conclude that pre-shear is decisive for structure, recovery time for the dry structure, and that aligning is preferred in high concentration. These findings comply to that mere drying of cellulose nanocrystal suspensions is not enough to control macro, micro and nano scale structure. With emulsion templated cellulose nanocrystal films, we demonstrate X-ray based visualization of microscale organization in the films that is based on observing orientation of crystalline planes in the films.

Hierarchical films from cellulose

2019 Spring National Meeting

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