Langmuir-Blodgett Deposition of Cellulose Nanocrystal Surfactants into Ordered Monolayers

Langmuir. 2022 Jul 19;38(28):8495-8501. doi: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.1c03440. Epub 2022 Jul 1.

Abstract

The cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) are shown to interact with amine-functionalized polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS-NH2) strongly at the water/oil interface, forming the CNC-POSS assemblies, that is, CNC surfactants that decrease the interfacial tension of the water/chloroform greatly. When bringing the CNC aqueous solution and POSS chloroform solution into a Langmuir trough, they form a monolayer of the CNC surfactants. Upon applying a continuous compression, a distinct transition appears in the surface pressure-area curves, and during this transition, the packing of the CNC surfactants in the produced monolayers transits from network-like patterns to ordered alignment.