Self-assembly of nanoparticles (NPs) forming unique structures has been investigated extensively over the past few years. However, many self-assembled structures by NPs are irreversible, because they are generally constructed using their suspensions. It is still challenging for NPs to reversibly self-assemble in dry state, let alone of polymeric NPs with general sizes of hundreds of nm. Herein, this study reports a new reversible self-assembly phenomenon of NPs in dry state, forming thermoreversible strip-like supermolecular structures. These novel NPs of around 150 nm are perfluorinated surface-undecenoated cellulose nanoparticles (FSU-CNPs) with a core-coronas structure. The thermoreversible self-assembled structure is formed after drying in the air at the interface between FSU-CNP films and Teflon substrates. Remarkably, the formation and dissociation of this assembled structure are accompanied by a reversible conversion of the surface hydrophobicity, film transparency, and anisotropic properties. These findings show novel feasibility of reversible self-assembly of NPs in dry state, and thereby expand our knowledge of self-assembly phenomenon.
Keywords: cellulose; core-coronas structure; nanoparticles; self-assembly; thermoreversible.
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