Hygromechanical properties of enzymatically-digested cotton based nanocellulose with modified wetting properties

Abstract

During the last decades, cellulose-based materials have rapidly gained importance due to their abundance and sustainability. By combining the growth of cotton in tissue culture with molecularly-designed glucose building-block feeding, cot ton fibers with tailored properties can be obtained. The goal of this project is to study the hygromechanical properties of nanocellulose with modified wetting properties using environmental Atomic Force Microscopy (e-AFM). Here we present a protocol to synthesize cotton fibers using enzymatic digestion based on cellulase, that yields nanofibrils. The enzymatically digested nanofib rils are then imaged using e-AFM, and their mechanical properties are measured under controlled relative humidity (RH) conditions. Preliminary results evidence that unmodified cellulose samples increase their Young’s modulus, while reducing their height with the decrease of rh. Mean while, modified samples are observed to be smaller than control ones, being more difficult to analyze mechanically. Future experiments will focus on on comparing control samples with modified ones at different humidities.