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Liquid crystalline cellulosic elastomers: free standing anisotropic films under stretching

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Abstract

The structure and local ordering of 1,6-hexamethylenediisocyanate-(acetoxypropy1) cellulose (HDI-APC) liquid crystalline elastomer thin films are investigated by using X-ray diffraction and scattering techniques. Optical microscopy and mechanical essays are performed to complement the investigation. The study is performed in films subjected or not to an uniaxial stress. Our results indicate that the film is constituted by a bundle of helicoidal fiber-like structure, where the cellobiose block spins around the axis of the fiber, like a string-structure in a smectic-like packing, with the pitch defined by a smectic-like layer. The fibers are in average perpendicular to the smectic-like planes. Without the stretch, these bundles are warped, only with a residual orientation along the casting direction. The stretch orients the bundles along it, increasing the smectic-like and the nematic-like ordering of the fibers. Under stress, the network of molecules which connects the cellobiose blocs and forms the cellulosic matrix tends to organize their links in a hexagonal-like structure with lattice parameter commensurate to the smectic-like structure.

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Acknowledgments

Authors acknowledge the financial support from Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia de Fluidos Complexos (INCT-FCx), Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation project PTDC/CTM/099595/2008.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, Caixa Postal 66318, São Paulo, São Paulo, 05314-970, Brazil

    C. Sena, C. L. P. Oliveira & A. M. Figueiredo Neto

  2. Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia e CENIMAT/I3N, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Quinta da Torre, 2829-519, Caparica, Portugal

    M. H. Godinho

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  1. C. Sena
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  2. M. H. Godinho
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  3. C. L. P. Oliveira
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  4. A. M. Figueiredo Neto
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Correspondence to C. Sena.

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Sena, C., Godinho, M.H., Oliveira, C.L.P. et al. Liquid crystalline cellulosic elastomers: free standing anisotropic films under stretching. Cellulose 18, 1151–1163 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-011-9575-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-011-9575-2

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