It’s the second day @Materials_MRS Fall Exhibit 2019. We’re giving away free samples of NanoWorld Arrow-NCR AFM probes in celebration of our 20th anniversary next year. Visit NanoAndMore USA booth #612 to pick up your free sample and find out what more we have planned for our anniversary year.
Despite being rather old, the Viscose process still is the most important and frequently used technology for the production of regenerated wood based fibers with annual production volumes exceeding 3.5 million tons, mainly for the textile industry.*
However, there are several environmental drawbacks of this technology. For instance, the necessity to use CS2 to form the cellulose precursor material (cellulose xanthate, CX), as well as the development of volatile sulfur containing compounds (e.g. H2S, COS) during the regeneration procedure requires complex recovery technologies, which manifest into higher prices of the final fiber products.*
Another technology that has raised attention in recent years is the Carbacell process. The Carbacell process relies on cellulose carbamate (CC), which is easily obtained by reacting cellulose with urea. CC is soluble in cold alkali and can be subjected to wet spinning processes similar to those in viscose plants.*
In their article: “Cellulose carbamate derived cellulose thin films: preparation, characterization and blending with cellulose xanthate” Michael Weißl, Mathias Andreas Hobisch, Leena Sisko Johansson, Kay Hettrich, Eero Kontturi, Bert Volkert and Stefan Spirk introduce a new system for manufacturing cellulose thin films based on ecofriendly CC. *
Since CC is water soluble, the use of organic solvents is omitted compared to the other often employed cellulose derivative, TMSC. In addition, CC can be synthesized in large scale via environmentally friendly procedures. The regeneration process itself does not require any additional treatment but is induced by increasing the NaOH concentration during the spin-coating via evaporation of the water, as confirmed by IR and XPS spectroscopy.*
Atomic Force Microscopy in tapping mode using a NanoWorld Arrow-NCR AFM probe was employed to gain further information about the surface morphology and structure of the CC films.
*Michael Weißl, Mathias Andreas Hobisch, Leena Sisko Johansson, Kay Hettrich, Eero Kontturi, Bert Volkert, Stefan Spirk
Cellulose carbamate derived cellulose thin films: preparation, characterization and blending with cellulose xanthate
Cellulose, August 2019, Volume 26, Issue 12, pp 7399–7410
Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-019-02600-z
Please follow this external link to read the full article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10570-019-02600-z
Open Access: The paper « Cellulose carbamate derived cellulose thin films: preparation, characterization and blending with cellulose xanthate » by Michael Weißl, Mathias Andreas Hobisch, Leena Sisko Johansson, Kay Hettrich, Eero Kontturi, Bert Volkert and Stefan Spirk is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
In the article “A Short Peptide Hydrogel with High Stiffness Induced by 310‐Helices to β‐Sheet Transition in Water” by Shu Hui Hiew, Harini Mohanram, Lulu Ning, Jingjing Guo, Antoni Sánchez‐Ferrer, Xiangyan Shi, Konstantin Pervushin, Yuguang Mu, Raffaele Mezzenga and Ali Miserez, a short biomimetic peptide composed of eight amino acid residues derived from squid sucker ring teeth proteins is demonstrated to form hydrogel in water without any cross‐linking agent or chemical modification and exhibits a stiffness on par with the stiffest peptide hydrogels.
Their study broadens the range of secondary structures available to create supramolecular hydrogels, and introduces 310‐helices as transient building blocks for gelation via a 310‐to‐β‐sheet conformational transition.*
The AFM images presented in this study were obtained in soft tapping mode using NanoWorld Pointprobe® NCSTR AFM probes.
*Shu Hui Hiew, Harini Mohanram, Lulu Ning, Jingjing Guo, Antoni Sánchez‐Ferrer, Xiangyan Shi, Konstantin Pervushin, Yuguang Mu, Raffaele Mezzenga, Ali Miserez
A Short Peptide Hydrogel with High Stiffness Induced by 310‐Helices to β‐Sheet Transition in Water
Advanced Science 2019, 1901173
Doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.201901173
Please follow this external link to read the full article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/advs.201901173
Open Access: The article « A Short Peptide Hydrogel with High Stiffness Induced by 310‐Helices to β‐Sheet Transition in Water » ” by Shu Hui Hiew, Harini Mohanram, Lulu Ning, Jingjing Guo, Antoni Sánchez‐Ferrer, Xiangyan Shi, Konstantin Pervushin, Yuguang Mu, Raffaele Mezzenga and Ali Miserez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other thirdparty material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.