Distinguishing Surface versus Bulk Hydroxyl Groups of Cellulose Nanocrystals Using Vibrational Sum Frequency Generation Spectroscopy

Mohamadamin Makarem, Christopher M. Lee, Daisuke Sawada, Hugh M. O'Neill, Seong H. Kim

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

33 Scopus citations

Abstract

In plant cell walls and cellulose-containing composites, nanocrystalline cellulose interacts with water molecules or matrix polymers through hydrogen bonding of the hydroxyl groups at the cellulose surface. These interactions play key roles in cellulose assembly in plant cell walls and mechanical properties of cellulose composites; however, they could not be studied properly due to the spectroscopic difficulty of selectively detecting the surface hydroxyl groups of nanocrystalline domains. This study employed the sum frequency scattering principle to distinguish the hydroxyl groups inside of the crystalline nanodomain of cellulose and those exposed at the surface of crystalline domains. The comparison of the spectra at various scattering angles revealed that the OH peak near ∼3450 cm-1 comes from the weakly hydrogen-bonded OH groups at the surface of crystalline cellulose. Also, a time delay measurement found that the sharp vibrational features observed near 3700 cm-1 can be attributed to isolated OH groups not accessible by ambient water molecules. These findings allow the distinction of surface versus bulk OH groups in sum frequency generation vibrational spectroscopy.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)70-75
Number of pages6
JournalJournal of Physical Chemistry Letters
Volume9
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 4 2018

Funding

This work was supported by The Center for Lignocellulose Structure and Formation, Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, under Award Number DE-SC0001090. The authors thank Ms. Riddhi Shah for assistance in producing deuterated bacterial cellulose. D.S. acknowledges the support of the Genomic Science Program, Office of Biological and Environmental Research (OBER), U.S. Department of Energy, under Contract FWP ERKP752.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Distinguishing Surface versus Bulk Hydroxyl Groups of Cellulose Nanocrystals Using Vibrational Sum Frequency Generation Spectroscopy'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this