1. Longitudinal orders in the flax cell wall re-examined by lineshape analysis of the X-ray diffraction 00l profile up to l = 10.
- Author
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Duchemin, B.
- Subjects
X-ray diffraction ,FLAX ,WOOD ,CELLULOSE ,NATURAL fibers ,MICROFIBRILS - Abstract
In his more recent work, Henri Chanzy explored the nature of cellulose microfibrils that were biosynthesized in vitro, in the absence of physical confinement, i.e. external constraints due to the presence of a solid cell wall against which the nanofibrils would be deposited. Henri Chanzy and his colleagues found out by electron diffraction that cellulose IV
I could be generated in the native cell wall. At the macroscopic scale, cellulose IVI could hardly be distinguished from cellulose Iβ in powder patterns because of the superimposition of the various signals. In the present work, the use of strongly textured flax or wood specimens was explored in order to generate strong longitudinal (or meridional) 00l patterns in a very wide range of the reciprocal space and with a high resolution. In order to do so, a diffractometer was used with a parafocusing geometry and long scans permitted to document the 002 to 0010 diffraction bands with accuracy, including the odd reflections that are normally present when dealing with cellulose IVI or imperfect forms of cellulose I. An omega scan also demonstrated the extreme selectivity of this setup and the very narrow orientation distribution of the sample. Surprisingly, this study showed that both flax fibres and fir wood contained three characteristic reflections that could be readily distinguished from one another and corresponded to characteristic interplanar spacings. A lineshape analysis using the Williamson–Hall approach and the Hosemann theory was performed on the flax sample. The results provide a better insight as to the longitudinal arrangement of cellulose in terms of domain sizes, microstrains or paracrystallinity. The three forms of order, characterized by various interplanar spacings, were present in different amounts in flax and fir, but the exact match of their interplanar spacing reveals some kind of possible universality in the cellulose arrangement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2023
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