Chiral Self-Assembly of Cellulose Nanocrystals is Driven by Crystallite Bundles
Authors
Kerkhof, Gea T van de
Narkevicius, Aurimas
Publication Date
2022-05-12Journal Title
Nature Communications
ISSN
2041-1723
Publisher
Nature Research
Volume
13
Issue
1
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Parton, T., Parker, R., Kerkhof, G. T. v. d., Narkevicius, A., Haataja, J., Frka-Petesic, B., & Vignolini, S. (2022). Chiral Self-Assembly of Cellulose Nanocrystals is Driven by Crystallite
Bundles. Nature Communications, 13 (1) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30226-6
Description
Funder: Emil Aaltosen Säätiö (Emil Aaltonen Foundation); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100004756
Funder: Philip Leverhulme Prize [PLP-2019-271]; Lord Lewis Research Studentship in Chemistry.
Abstract
The transfer of chirality across length-scales is an intriguing and universal
natural phenomenon. However, connecting the properties of individual building
blocks to the emergent features of their resulting large-scale structure
remains a challenge. In this work, we investigate the origins of mesophase
chirality in cellulose nanocrystal suspensions, whose self-assembly into chiral
photonic films has attracted significant interest. By correlating the ensemble
behaviour in suspensions and films with a quantitative morphological analysis
of the individual nanoparticles, we reveal an inverse relationship between the
cholesteric pitch and the abundance of laterally-bound composite particles.
These bundles thus act as colloidal chiral dopants, analogous to those used in
molecular liquid crystals, providing the missing link in the hierarchical
transfer of chirality from the molecular to the colloidal scale.
Keywords
Article, /639/301/923/966, /639/301/923/916, /639/301/923/919, /639/624/399/1022, /639/301/54/989, /147/143, /147/3, /147/135, /128, /123, article
Sponsorship
EPSRC (1948659)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (1948659)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L015978/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/N509620/1)
European Commission Horizon 2020 (H2020) Marie Sk?odowska-Curie actions (722842)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/P030467/1)
European Commission Horizon 2020 (H2020) Marie Sk?odowska-Curie actions (893136)
European Commission Horizon 2020 (H2020) ERC (101001637)
BBSRC (BB/V00364X/1)
Identifiers
s41467-022-30226-6, 30226
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30226-6
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/337084
Rights
Licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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