There has been a growing interest in thermal management materials due to the prevailing energy challenges and unfulfilled needs for thermal insulation applications. We demonstrate the exceptional thermal management capabilities of a large-scale, hierarchal alignment of cellulose nanofibrils directly fabricated fromwood, hereafter referred to as nanowood. Nanowood exhibits anisotropic thermal properties with an extremely low thermal conductivity of 0.03W/m·K in the transverse direction (perpendicular to the nanofibrils) and approximately two times higher thermal conductivity of 0.06W/m·K in the axial direction due to the hierarchically aligned nanofibrilswithin the highly porous backbone. The anisotropy of the thermal conductivity enables efficient thermal dissipation along the axial direction, thereby preventing local overheating on the illuminated side while yielding improved thermal insulation along the backside that cannot be obtained with isotropic thermal insulators. The nanowood also shows a low emissivity of <5% over the solar spectrum with the ability to effectively reflect solar thermal energy. Moreover, the nanowood is lightweight yet strong, owing to the effective bonding between the aligned cellulose nanofibrils with a high compressive strength of 13 MPa in the axial direction and 20MPa in the transverse direction at 75% strain, which exceeds other thermal insulation materials, such as silica and polymer aerogels, Styrofoam, and wool. The excellent thermal management, abundance, biodegradability, high mechanical strength, low mass density, and manufacturing scalability of the nanowood make this material highly attractive for practical thermal insulation applications. 

Macroscopic beads of water-based gels consisting of uncharged and partially charged beta-(1,4)-D-glucan polymers were developed to be used as a novel model material for studying the water induced swelling of the delignified plant fiber walls. The gel beads were prepared by drop-wise precipitation of solutions of dissolving grade fibers carboxymethylated to different degrees. The internal structure was analyzed using Solid State Cross-Polarization Magic Angle Spinning Carbon-13 Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and Small Angle X-ray Scattering showing that the internal structure could be considered a homogeneous, non-crystalline and molecularly dispersed polymer network. When beads with different charge densities were equilibrated with aqueous solutions of different ionic strengths and/or pH, the change in water uptake followed the trends expected for weak polyelectrolyte gels and the trends found for cellulose-rich fibers. When dried and subsequently immersed in water the beads also showed an irreversible loss of swelling depending on the charge and type of counter-ion which is commonly also found for cellulose-rich fibers. Taken all these results together it is clear that the model cellulose-based beads constitute an excellent tool for studying the fundamentals of swelling of cellulose rich plant fibers, aiding in the elucidation of the different molecular and supramolecular contributions to the swelling.

Mucoadhesion is defined as the adhesion of a material to the mucus gel covering the mucous membranes. The mechanisms controlling mucoadhesion include nonspecific electrostatic interactions and specific interactions between the materials and the mucins, the heavily glycosylated proteins that form the mucus gel. Mucoadhesive materials can be used to develop mucosal wound dressings and noninvasive transmucosal drug delivery systems. Spider silk, which is strong, biocompatible, biodegradable, nontoxic, and lightweight would serve as an excellent base for the development of such materials. Here, we investigated two variants of the partial spider silk protein 4RepCT genetically engineered in order to functionalize them with mucoadhesive properties. The pLys-4RepCT variant was functionalized with six cationically charged lysines, aiming to provide nonspecific adhesion from electrostatic interactions with the anionically charged mucins, while the hGal3-4RepCT variant was genetically fused with the Human Galectin-3 Carbohydrate Recognition Domain which specifically binds the mucin glycans Gal beta 1-3GlcNAc and Gal beta 1-4GlcNAc. First, we demonstrated that coatings, fibers, meshes, and foams can be readily made from both silk variants. Measured by the adsorption of both bovine submaxillary mucin and pig gastric mucin, the newly produced silk materials showed enhanced mucin binding properties compared with materials of wild-type (4RepCT) silk. Moreover, we showed that pLys-4RepCT silk coatings bind mucins through electrostatic interactions, while hGal3-4RepCT silk coatings bind mucins through specific glycan-protein interactions. We envision that the two new mucoadhesive silk variants pLys-4RepCT and hGal3-4RepCT, alone or combined with other biofunctional silk proteins, constitute useful new building blocks for a range of silk protein-based materials for mucosal treatments.

Composites based on interpenetrating networks (IPNs) of cellulose nanofibril (CNF) aerogels and polyacrylamide are prepared and exhibit robust mechanical, water retaining, and re-swelling capacities. Furthermore, their swelling behavior is not affected by an increased ionic strength of the aqueous phase. These unprecedented IPNs combine the water retaining capacity of the polyacrylamide with the mechanical strength provided by the CNF aerogel template. The CNF aerogel/polyacrylamide composites exhibit a compressive stress at break greater than 250% compared with a neat polyacrylamide hydrogel. Furthermore, the composites retain their wet compression properties after drying and re-swelling, whereas the neat polyacrylamide hydrogels fail at a significantly lower stress and strain after drying and re-swelling. These composite materials highlight the potential of CNF aerogels to strengthen the mechanical properties and reduce the number of fracture defects during the drying and re-swelling of a hydrogel. These composites show the potential of being optimized for a plethora of applications, especially in the hygiene field and for biomedical devices.

Nanoscale building blocks of many materials exhibit extraordinary mechanical properties due to their defect-free molecular structure. Translation of these high mechanical properties to macroscopic materials represents a difficult materials engineering challenge due to the necessity to organize these building blocks into multiscale patterns and mitigate defects emerging at larger scales. Cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs), the most abundant structural element in living systems, has impressively high strength and stiffness, but natural or artificial cellulose composites are 3-15 times weaker than the CNFs. Here, we report the flow-assisted organization of CNFs into macroscale fibers with nearly perfect unidirectional alignment. Efficient stress transfer from macroscale to individual CNF due to cross-linking and high degree of order enables their Young's modulus to reach up to 86 GPa and a tensile strength of 1.57 GPa, exceeding the mechanical properties of known natural or synthetic biopolymeric materials. The specific strength of our CNF fibers engineered at multiscale also exceeds that of metals, alloys, and glass fibers, enhancing the potential of sustainable lightweight high-performance materials with multiscale self-organization.

Highly porous materials with low density were developed from chemically modified cellulose fibers using solvent-exchange and air drying. Periodate oxidation was initially performed to introduce aldehydes into the cellulose chain, which were then further oxidized to carboxyl groups by chlorite oxidation. Low-density materials were finally achieved by a second periodate oxidation under which the fibers self-assembled into porous fibrous networks. Following a solvent exchange to acetone, these networks could be air-dried without shrinkage. The properties of the materials were tuned by mechanical mixing with a high intensity mixer for different times prior to the second periodate oxidation, which resulted in porosities between 94.4% and 96.3% (i.e., densities between 54 and 82 kg/m(3)). The compressive strength of the materials was between 400 and 1600 kPa in the dry state and between 20 and 50 kPa in the wet state. It was also observed that in the wet state the fiber networks could be compressed up to 80% while still being able to recover their shape. These networks are highly interesting for use in different types of absorption products, and since they also have a high wet integrity, they can be modified with physical methods for different high-value-added end-use applications.

Supramolecular double network films, consisting of cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) entangled with the algal polysaccharides alginate or carrageenan, were prepared using a rapid vacuum filtration process to achieve water-resistant CNF nanopapers with excellent mechanical properties in both the wet and dry states following the locking of the structures using Ca2+. The rigid network of calcium alginate was more efficient than the more flexible network of calcium carrageenan and 10% by weight of alginate was sufficient to form a network that suppressed the swelling of the CNF film by over 95%. The resulting material could be compared to a stiff rubber with a Young's modulus of 135 MPa, a tensile strength of 17 MPa, a strain-at-break above 55%, and a work of fracture close to 5 MJ m(-3) in the wet state, which was both significantly stronger and more ductile than the calcium-treated CNF reference nanopaper. It was shown that the state in which Ca2+ was introduced is crucial, and it is also hypothesized that the alginate works as a sacrificial network that prevents the CNF from aligning during loading and that this leads to the increased toughness. The material maintained its barrier properties at elevated relative humidities and the extensibility and ductility made possible hygroplastic forming into three-dimensional shapes. It is suggested that the attractive force in the CNF part of the double network in the presence of multivalent ions is due to the ion-ion correlation forces generated by the fluctuating counter-ion cloud, since no significant ion coordination was observed using FTIR.

The layer-by-layer (LbL) technology was used to adsorb polyelectrolyte multilayers consisting of cationic polyethylenimine (PEI) and anionic sodium hexametaphosphate (SHMP) onto cellulose fibers in order to enhance the flame-retardancy and tensile strength of paper sheets made from these fibers. The fundamental effect of PEI molecular mass on the build-up of the multilayer film was investigated using model cellulose surfaces and a quartz crystal microbalance technique. The adsorption of a low (LMw) and a high molecular weight (HMw) PEI onto cellulose fibers and carboxymethylated (CM) cellulose fibers was investigated using polyelectrolyte titration. The fibers were consecutively treated with PEI and SHMP to deposit 3.5 bilayers (BL) on the fiber surfaces, and the treated fibers were then used to prepare sheets. In addition, a wet-strength paper sheet was prepared and treated with the same LbL coatings. Thermal gravimetric analysis of LbL-treated fibers showed that the onset temperature for cellulose degradation was lowered and that the amount of residue at 800 °C increased. A horizontal flame test and a vertical flame test were used to evaluate the combustion behavior of the paper sheets. Papers prepared from both cellulose fibers and CM-cellulose fibers treated with HMw-PEI/SHMP LbL-combination self-extinguished in a horizontal configuration despite the rather low amounts of adsorbed polymer which form very thin films (wet thickness of ca. 17 nm). The tensile properties of handsheets showed that 3.5 BL of HMw-PEI and SHMP increased the stress at break by 100% compared to sheets prepared from untreated cellulose fibers.

The heterogeneous nature of non-cellulosic polysaccharides, such as arabinoxylan, makes it difficult to correlate molecular structure with macroscopic properties. To study the impact of specific structural features of the polysaccharides on crystallinity or affinity to other cell wall components, collections of polysaccharides with defined repeating units are required. Herein, a chemoenzymatic approach to artificial arabinoxylan polysaccharides with systematically altered branching patterns is described. The polysaccharides were obtained by glycosynthase-catalyzed polymerization of glycosyl fluorides derived from arabinoxylan oligosaccharides. X-ray diffraction and adsorption experiments on cellulosic surfaces revealed that the physicochemical properties of the synthetic polysaccharides strongly depend on the specific nature of their substitution patterns. The artificial polysaccharides allow structure-property relationship studies that are not accessible by other means.