Cellulose nanocrystals 'have strength of steel'

The nanocrystals might be used to create a new class of biomaterials with applications that include strengthening construction materials and automotive components.

Calculations using precise models based on the atomic structure of cellulose show the crystals have a stiffness of 206 gigapascals, which is comparable to steel, said Pablo D. Zavattieri, a Purdue University assistant professor of civil engineering.

‘This is a material that is showing really amazing properties,’ he said in a statement. ‘It is abundant, renewable and produced as waste in the paper industry.’

Findings are detailed in Cellulose. The paper was authored by Purdue doctoral student Fernando L. Dri; Louis G. Hector Jr, a researcher from the Chemical Sciences and Materials Systems Laboratory at General Motors Research and Development Center; Robert J. Moon, a researcher from the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Products Laboratory; and Zavattieri.

The nanocrystals are about 3nm wide by 500nm long, making them too small to study with light microscopes and difficult to measure with laboratory instruments.