title: Capturing the portrait of isolated individual natural cellulose molecules.
abstract: Natural cellulose molecules have a strong tendency of being aggregated into larger structures. Thus, the imaging of isolated individual cellulose molecules is hampered for a long time. In this work, we manage to observe, for the first time, the isolated individual natural cellulose chains on a sample surface by means of atomic force microscope. The advantage of the ionic liquid, in which natural cellulose can be molecularly dispersed, is considered to be the key point for the successful imaging. Moreover, we find that the surface charge can influence the morphology of the single cellulose chains upon adsorption. That is, on the positively charged surface, individual cellulose chains adopt an extended conformation; whereas on the negatively charged surface, a compact globule conformation is observed.
authors: State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Polymer Research Institute, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China.
authors: Zhenzhen
authors: Z
authors: Wan
authors: Lu
authors: L
authors: Li
authors: Shuxun
authors: S
authors: Cui
mesh_terms: D000327:Adsorption; D001665:Binding Sites; D002482:Cellulose / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force / Q000379:methods; D053758:Nanoparticles
chemical_list: D002482:Cellulose