Biomacromolecules
Biomacromolecules
5 years ago

Dynamic Viscoelastic Functions of Liquid-Crystalline Chitin Nanofibril Dispersions

Dynamic Viscoelastic Functions of Liquid-Crystalline Chitin Nanofibril Dispersions
Reina Tanaka, Akira Isogai, Tsuguyuki Saito, Morihiko Yokoi
The dynamic viscoelastic functions of aqueous chitin nanofibril (ChNF) dispersions are defined by their liquid-crystalline fibril arrangement. Four ChNF dispersions with different structures were prepared from squid-pen β-chitin, by sonication in aqueous acetic acid at pH 3 for 4–40 min. Squid-pen β-chitin was disintegrated into randomly oriented bundles of ChNFs during the initial stage of sonication and then became more finely dispersed with further sonication up to 8 min. The additional sonication resulted in the individualization of the approximately 3 nm-wide ChNFs. The individual ChNFs self-organized into a nematic liquid crystalline phase. All ChNF dispersions showed power-law concentration c dependences of their storage moduli G′ at a certain angular frequency ω (Gω′ = Acα). The front factor A was positively correlated with the degree of disintegration. The exponent α increased from 2.7 to 3.8–3.9, as the ChNF dispersion self-organized from the randomly dispersed structure into the nematic-ordered fibril arrangement. This demonstrated an enhancement in the solid concentration dependence.

Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.biomac.7b00690

DOI: 10.1021/acs.biomac.7b00690

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.