Untangling the threads of cellulose mercerization

Sawada, Daisuke; Nishiyama, Yoshiharu; Shah, Riddhi; Forsyth, V. Trevor; Mossou, Estelle; O’Neill, Hugh Michael; Wada, Masahisa; Langan, Paul

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-33812-w

Title: Untangling the threads of cellulose mercerization

Journal Article · 18 October 2022 · Nature Communications

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33812-w · OSTI ID:1893802

^[1]; Nishiyama, Yoshiharu ^[2]; Shah, Riddhi ^[1]; Forsyth, V. Trevor ^[3];

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Univ. Joseph Fourier, Grenoble (France); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) (France)
Inst. Laue-Langevin (ILL), Grenoble (France); Lund Univ. (Sweden); LINXS Institute of Advanced Neutron and X-ray Science (Sweden)
Inst. Laue-Langevin (ILL), Grenoble (France)
Kyoto Univ. (Japan)
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Inst. Laue-Langevin (ILL), Grenoble (France)

Naturally occurring plant cellulose, our most abundant renewable resource, consists of fibers of long polymer chains that are tightly packed in parallel arrays in either of two crystal phases collectively referred to as cellulose I. During mercerization, a process that involves treatment with sodium hydroxide, cellulose goes through a conversion to another crystal form called cellulose II, within which every other chain has remarkably changed direction. We designed a neutron diffraction experiment with deuterium labelling in order to understand how this change of cellulose chain direction is possible. Here we show that during mercerization of bacterial cellulose, chains fold back on themselves in a zigzag pattern to form crystalline anti-parallel domains. This result provides a molecular level understanding of one of the most widely used industrial processes for improving cellulosic materials.

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Research Organization:: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725

OSTI ID:: 1893802

Journal Information:: Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 13; ISSN 2041-1723

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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