1. A Simple Nanocellulose Coating for Self-Cleaning upon Water Action: Molecular Design of Stable Surface Hydrophilicity.
- Author
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Huang, Shu and Wang, Dayang
- Subjects
- *
COMPUTER-assisted molecular design , *HYDROPHILIC surfaces , *COATING processes , *CELLULOSE , *MONOMOLECULAR films , *VISCOUS flow , *HYDROXY acids - Abstract
Coating solid surfaces with cellulose nanofibril (CNF) monolayers via physical deposition was found to keep the surfaces free of a variety of oils, ranging from viscous engine oil to polar n-butanol, upon water action. The self-cleaning function was well correlated with the unique molecular structure of the CNF, in which abundant surface carboxyl and hydroxy groups are uniformly, densely, and symmetrically arranged to form a polar corona on a crystalline nanocellulose strand. This isotropic core-corona configuration offers new and easily adoptable guidance to design self-cleaning surfaces at the molecular level. Thanks to its excellent self-cleaning behavior, the CNF coating converted conventional meshes into highly effective membranes for oil-water separation with no prior surface treatment required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2017
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