Untangling the threads of cellulose mercerization

Daisuke Sawada; Yoshiharu Nishiyama; Riddhi Shah; V. Trevor Forsyth; Estelle Mossou; Hugh Michael O’Neill; Masahisa Wada; Paul Langan

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-33812-w

Untangling the threads of cellulose mercerization

Daisuke Sawada, Yoshiharu Nishiyama, Riddhi Shah, V. Trevor Forsyth, Estelle Mossou, Hugh Michael O’Neill, Masahisa Wada, Paul Langan

Biological and Environmental Systems Sci

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

23 Scopus citations

Abstract

Naturally occurring plant cellulose, our most abundant renewable resource, consists of fibers of long polymer chains that are tightly packed in parallel arrays in either of two crystal phases collectively referred to as cellulose I. During mercerization, a process that involves treatment with sodium hydroxide, cellulose goes through a conversion to another crystal form called cellulose II, within which every other chain has remarkably changed direction. We designed a neutron diffraction experiment with deuterium labelling in order to understand how this change of cellulose chain direction is possible. Here we show that during mercerization of bacterial cellulose, chains fold back on themselves in a zigzag pattern to form crystalline anti-parallel domains. This result provides a molecular level understanding of one of the most widely used industrial processes for improving cellulosic materials.

Original language	English
Article number	6189
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	13
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33812-w
State	Published - Dec 2022

Funding

This research is funded by the Genomic Science Program, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, U.S. Department of Energy, under FWP ERKP752. The Center for Structural Molecular Biology (CSMB) is supported by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research, using facilities supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC under contract no. DE-AC05-00OR22725. This research was supported by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, US Department of Energy. The authors thank the Institut Laue Lagnevin for the provision of beamtime. This research is funded by the Genomic Science Program, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, U.S. Department of Energy, under FWP ERKP752. The Center for Structural Molecular Biology (CSMB) is supported by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research, using facilities supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC under contract no. DE-AC05-00OR22725. This research was supported by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, US Department of Energy. The authors thank the Institut Laue Lagnevin for the provision of beamtime.

Funders	Funder number
Institut Laue Lagnevin
Scientific User Facilities Division
U.S. Department of Energy	FWP ERKP752
Basic Energy Sciences
Biological and Environmental Research
UT-Battelle	DE-AC05-00OR22725

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AU - Wada, Masahisa

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Untangling the threads of cellulose mercerization

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