Mechanisms Promoting Self-Spinning of Sub-Micrometre Continuous Filaments from Nanofibres
Project description
My PhD project investigates the nanoscale self-assembly of high-aspect-ratio semiflexible nanofibril particles, in particular nanocellulose fibrils (CNF).
The main goal of the project is to develop the ability to promote self-organised assembly of nanofibrils into sub-micrometre filaments, what may constitute a future well-defined mesoscale building block for fabricating high-performance materials.
My investigations will therefore focus on how confinement and imposed initial alignment, using flow fields, interact with Brownian motion for nanofibrillar dispersions at various concentrations and during evaporation.
In-house 3D printed set-ups will be characterized using optical microscopy and tested in an optical polarized micorscopy configuration, corroborated by further x-ray and neutron scattering experiments (SAXS, XPCS, and QENS).