Developing cellulosic functional materials from multi-scale strategy and applications in flexible bioelectronic devices

Abstract

With the forthcoming of the post-COVID-19 and the ageing era, the novel biomaterials and bioelectronic devices are attracting more and more attention and favor. Cellulose as one of the most globe-abundant natural macromolecules has multiple merits of biocompatibility, processability, carbon neutral feature and mechanical designability. Due to its progressive advancement of multi-scale design from macro to micro followed by new cognitions, cellulose shows a promising application prospect in developing bio-functional materials. In this review, we briefly discuss the role of cellulose from the "top-down" perspective of macro-scale fibers, micro-scale nanofibers, and molecular-scale macromolecular chains for the design of advanced cellulose-based functional materials. The focus then turns to the construction and development of emerging cellulose-based flexible bioelectronic devices including biosensors, biomimetic electronic skins, and biological detection devices. Finally, the dilemma and challenge of cellulose-based bioelectronic materials and their application prospects in basic biology and medical care have been prospected.

Keywords: Cellulose; Flexible bioelectronics; Functional material; Hydrogen-bond network; Multi-scale design.