Project description
Inverting the chirality of a colloidal liquid crystal for sustainable colourants
Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) are rod-like nanoparticles derived from natural cellulose that can form a cholesteric liquid crystal phase when suspended in water. By drying out this chiral mesophase the helicoidal arrangement of CNCs can be preserved in the solid state, resulting in films that exhibit vibrant colouration due to light interference within the periodic nanostructure. Although CNC self-assembly is a promising way to produce sustainable colourants, the cholesteric phase is invariably left-handed and the films are therefore limited to reflecting up to 50 % of incident light. With the support of the Marie-Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme the CINCOS project aims to produce a right-handed cholesteric phase in CNC suspensions for the first time, leading to films that reflect right-circularly polarised light in the visible range.
Objective
"The chiral self-assembly of nanoscale building blocks offers a scalable route to functional materials, but understanding and controlling this process is a persistent challenge. A notable example is cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs), elongated nanoparticles extracted from natural cellulose that assemble into a cholesteric liquid crystal phase in aqueous suspension. This helicoidal self-organisation can be preserved into the solid state to create structurally coloured films, offering a sustainable way to produce next-generation pigments and colourants. However, the CNC cholesteric phase is always found to be left-handed due to the presence of ""bundles"", a sub-population of CNCs that act as colloidal chiral dopants and induce left-handed ordering. Inspired by the naturally-occuring CNC bundles, this project aims to produce cellulose polycrystals (CPCs), a new class of clustered nanoparticles produced by the aggregation of CNCs in the presence of a chiral ""glue"" provided by hemicelluloses. These CPCs will then be used as synthetic chiral dopants to induce a right-handed cholesteric phase in CNCs suspensions for the first time. This inversion of the handedness of CNC self-assembly will result in films that reflect RCP light in the visible range, enabling the creation of structurally-coloured materials with near-ideal optical performance. These findings will deepen our understanding of chiral colloidal self-assembly and open up new avenues of enquiry for research on bio-sourced nanomaterials."
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
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Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinator
80539 Munchen
Germany