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posted by martyb on Monday June 01 2020, @05:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the now-we-need-some-tiny-little-checkers dept.

Tiny Three-Dimensional Chessboards Could Lead to "Paper Electronics":

Researchers at The Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research at Osaka University introduced a new liquid-phase fabrication method for producing nanocellulose films with multiple axes of alignment. Using 3D-printing methods for increased control, this work may lead to cheaper and more environmentally friendly optical and thermal devices.

[...] Many existing optical devices, including liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) found in older flat-screen televisions, rely on long needle-shaped molecules aligned in the same direction. However, getting fibers to line up in multiple directions on the same device is much more difficult. Having a method that can reliably and cheaply produce optical fibers would accelerate the manufacture of low-cost displays or even "paper electronics" — computers that could be printed from biodegradable materials on demand.

[...] In newly published research from the Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research at Osaka University, nanocellulose was harvested from sea pineapples, a kind of sea squirt. They then used liquid-phase 3D-pattering, which combined the wet spinning of nanofibers with the precision of 3D-printing. A custom-made triaxial robot dispensed a nanocellulose aqueous suspension into an acetone coagulation bath.

[...] "Our findings could aid in the development of next-generation optical materials and paper electronics," says senior author Masaya Nogi. "This could be the start of bottom-up techniques for building sophisticated and energy-efficient optical and thermal materials."

Journal Reference:
Uetani, Kojiro, Koga, Hirotaka, Nogi, Masaya. Checkered Films of Multiaxis Oriented Nanocelluloses by Liquid-Phase Three-Dimensional Patterning, Nanomaterials (DOI: 10.3390/nano10050958)


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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday June 01 2020, @06:55PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday June 01 2020, @06:55PM (#1001819) Journal

    https://www.mdpi.com/2079-4991/10/5/958/htm [mdpi.com]

    To overcome the above problems, in this study, we developed the “liquid-phase” 3D patterning technique by combining wet spinning and 3D printing, which keeps unidirectionally aligned nanocellulose under wet condition to construct the multiaxis patterns. The nanocellulose suspensions were directly discharged to an acetone coagulation bath to form gels to retain the oriented structures, and the never-dried patterned gels could adhere to each other by drying to form a single film. In addition, we used tunicate cellulose nanowhiskers (TNWs), known to have a higher aspect ratio than CNCs from wood pulp, in then expectation that they would align at lower concentrations with the application of lower pressure. By programming the orientation patterns, we succeeded in forming checkered films of multiaxis oriented nanocelluloses for the first time.

    The 3D patterning technique for use with nanocellulose is the main advance. Applications are very speculative.

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