Abstract:
Nanocellulose is attractive for next-generation materials design due to its sustainability, intrinsic mechanical properties, and ease of functionalization. Nanocellulose can also exhibit liquid crystalline behaviour in aqueous suspension, self-assembling into “chiral nematic” helical structures. This organization can be captured in the solid state to create structurally coloured materials or hierarchically ordered aerogels with well-defined porosity. In this presentation, I will walk through my journey with nanocellulose throughout the last four years. I will touch on its self-assembly behaviour in structurally coloured films, then zoom in to view the nanocellulose surface at the atomic scale with AFM. Finally, I will demonstrate my efforts to take advantage of nanocellulose self-assembly for the development of free-standing porous carbon aerogels with applications as supercapacitor electrodes.