HYDROPHOBIC COATINGS ON CELLULOSE MATERIALS

Cellobiohydrolase Hydrolyzes Crystalline Cellulose on Hydrophobic Faces*

Biodegradation of plant biomass is a slow process in nature, and hydrolysis of cellulose is also widely considered to be a rate-limiting step in the proposed industrial process of converting lignocellulosic materials to biofuels. It is generally known that a team of enzymes including endo- and exocellulases as well as cellobiases are required to act synergistically to hydrolyze cellulose to glu...

Enhanced nucleate boiling on horizontal hydrophobic-hydrophilic carbon nanotube coatings

Nanocrystalline materials and coatings

In recent years, near-nano (submicron) and nanostructured materials have attracted increasingly more attention from the materials community. Nanocrystalline materials are characterized by a microstructural length or grain size of up to about 100 nm. Materials having grain size of 0.1 to 0.3 mm are classified as submicron materials. Nanocrystalline materials exhibit various shapes or forms, and ...

Effect of nanoroughness on highly hydrophobic and superhydrophobic coatings.

The effect of nanoroughness on contact angles and pinning is investigated experimentally and numerically for low-energy surfaces. Nanoroughness is introduced by chemical vapor deposition of tetraethoxysilane and was quantified by scanning force microscopy. Addition of a root-mean-square roughness of 2 nm on a flat surface can increase the contact angle after fluorination by a semifluorinated si...

Cellulose-based materials

Cellulose represents the most abundant renewable and biodegradable polymeric material on earth. Due to its low cost and functional versatility, cellulose has been a key feedstock for the production of chemicals with various properties and applications over the past century. In 2000, the world produces 187 million tons of wood pulp annually. Most of it is used as raw material in the production o...