Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) can self-assemble into colorful and iridescent films when dried, but their brittleness limits practical applications. While plasticizers can reduce this brittleness, their effects on CNC self-assembly—both in suspension and in dried films—are rarely elaborated. In this short talk, I will discuss our recent investigations of CNC self-assembly in the presence of D-glucose (and related compounds) as a plasticizing additive. We found that D-glucose functions as a lubricating spacer in dried films, increasing the strain at break while causing a red-shift in reflectance color and increased structural disorder. These changes occur without significantly affecting self-assembly behavior in suspension.

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Bio

Tiffany is an assistant professor at EPFL, where she heads the Sustainable Materials Laboratory within the Institute of Materials in the School of Engineering. Before joining EPFL in 2022, Tiffany worked as a research scientist at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden.