Spontaneous Co-Assembly of Cellulose Nanocrystals and TiO 2 Nanorods Followed by Calcination to Form Cholesteric Inorganic Nanostructures

• Published in: Langmuir Vol. 39; no. 26; pp. 9180 - 9185
• Main Authors: Zhang, Wenshi, Cheng, Xinquan, Chen, Shaw H, Anthamatten, Mitchell
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 04.07.2023
• ISSN: 0743-7463; 1520-5827
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c00981

Chiral nanomaterials possess unique electronic, magnetic, and optical properties that are relevant to a wide range of applications including photocatalysis, chiral photonics, and biosensing. A simple, bottom-up method to create chiral, inorganic structures is introduced that involves the co-assembly of TiO nanorods with cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) in water. To guide experimental efforts, a phase diagram was constructed to describe how phase behavior depends on the CNCs/TiO /H O composition. A lyotropic cholesteric mesophase was observed to extend over a wide composition range as high as 50 wt % TiO nanorods, far exceeding other examples of inorganic nanorods/CNCs co-assembly. Such a high loading enables the fabrication of inorganic, free-standing chiral films through removal of water and calcination. Distinct from the traditional templating method using CNCs, this new approach separates sol-gel synthesis from particle self-assembly using low-cost nanorods.