Spine is the sharpest and hardest part of many plants, which contains highly aligned fiber cells. Here, we report the micro- structures and mechanical properties as well as their correlation of single spine fiber cel...Spine is the sharpest and hardest part of many plants, which contains highly aligned fiber cells. Here, we report the micro- structures and mechanical properties as well as their correlation of single spine fiber cells （SFCs） from the cactus Echinocactus grusonii. It is found that the SFCs are 0.32-0.57 mm in length and 4.6-6.0 gm in width, yielding an aspect ratio of 53-124. X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometry show that the spine fiber is mainly made up of cellulose I with a crystallinity index up to -76%. Nanoindentation tests show that a natural spine presents a high modulus of -17 GPa. Removing hemicellulose and lignin from the SFC significantly reduces its modulus to -0.487 GPa, demonstrating the critical role of adhesives hemicellulose and lignin in affecting the mechanical properties of the SFCs. This finding sheds light on de- signing novel bio-inspired high-performance composite nanomaterials with aligned nanofibers, such as using hemicellulose and lignin as adhesive in making carbon nanotube fibers.展开更多
基金supported by the National Key Basic Research Program of China("973"program)(Grant Nos.2013CB932604,2012CB933403)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.91023026)+2 种基金the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities(Grant NosNP2013309,NS2012043)Jiangsu Planned Projects for Postdoctoral Research Funds(Grant No.1302015B)the NUAA Research Initiative for New Stuff(Grant No.1011-YAH13042)
文摘Spine is the sharpest and hardest part of many plants, which contains highly aligned fiber cells. Here, we report the micro- structures and mechanical properties as well as their correlation of single spine fiber cells （SFCs） from the cactus Echinocactus grusonii. It is found that the SFCs are 0.32-0.57 mm in length and 4.6-6.0 gm in width, yielding an aspect ratio of 53-124. X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometry show that the spine fiber is mainly made up of cellulose I with a crystallinity index up to -76%. Nanoindentation tests show that a natural spine presents a high modulus of -17 GPa. Removing hemicellulose and lignin from the SFC significantly reduces its modulus to -0.487 GPa, demonstrating the critical role of adhesives hemicellulose and lignin in affecting the mechanical properties of the SFCs. This finding sheds light on de- signing novel bio-inspired high-performance composite nanomaterials with aligned nanofibers, such as using hemicellulose and lignin as adhesive in making carbon nanotube fibers.
