Hierarchical structure in microbial cellulose; What happens during the drying process

微生物産生セルロースにおける階層構造; 乾燥過程において起こる事象について

Zhao, Y.; 小泉 智; 山口 大輔; 近藤 哲男*

Zhao, Y.; Koizumi, Satoshi; Yamaguchi, Daisuke; Kondo, Tetsuo*

We present a time-resolved investigation of the natural drying process of microbial cellulose (MC) by means of simultaneous small-angle neutron scattering (SANS), intermediate-angle neutron scattering (IANS) and weighing techniques. SANS was used to elucidate the microscopic structure of the MC sample. The coherent scattering length density of the water penetrating amorphous domains varied with time during the drying process to give a tunable scattering contrast to the water-resistant cellulose crystallites, thus the contrast variation was automatically performed by simply drying.