Seminar "Nanocellulose assembly in aqueous media: towards functional hybrid materials" Vincenzo Calabrese

Micro/Bio/Nanofluidics (Shen) Unit would like to invite you to the seminar by Mr. Vincenzo Calabrese on July 30th (Tuesday).
 
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Date: Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Time: 11:00-12:00
Venue: D015 (Level D, Lab 1)
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Speaker:

Mr. Vincenzo Calabrese
Department of Chemistry, University of Bath,

Title:

Nanocellulose assembly in aqueous media: towards functional hybrid materials

Abstract:

In the last decade cellulose nano brils (CNF) have received attention for the production of a wide range of biodegradable materials. In particular, the fibrillar nature of CNF allowed 3D network to form with as little as 0.1 wt%, leading to the production of hydrogels with high water content. A different avenue of applications has also been exploited for the ability of CNF to assemble across liquid-liquid interfaces (2D). On this ground, we reported different strategies to modulated 2D and 3D assembly of CNF and its relation with the resulting mechanical properties.
3D assembly:
a) "Surfactant controlled zwitterionic cellulose nanofibrils" where we report on the effect of anionic, cationic and nonionic surfactant on the structural changes of the fibrils and its effect on the
flow properties of the dispersion.
b) "Filler size effect in an attractive fibrillated network investigated via small and large amplitude oscillatory shear rheology" where we link linear and non-linear mechanical ngerprints to structural properties.
c) "Charge-driven interfacial gelation of cellulose nanofibrils across water/oil interface". A report on the effect of ionic strength on the rheological and morphological properties of the 2D gels.
d) "Core-shell spheroidal hydrogels produced via charge-driven interfacial complexation". We report on the fabrication of millimetre-sized spheroidal hydrogels (SH) with a core-shell structure allowing long term stability in aqueous media. We validated a potential application of SH as re-usable matrixes for glucose oxidase (GOx) entrapment, where the SH work as microreactors from which substrate and product are freely able to migrate, through the SH shell whilst avoiding enzyme leakage.

Calabrese, V. et al. Understanding Heat Driven Gelation of Anionic Cellulose Nanofibrils: Combining Saturation Transfer Difference (STD) NMR, Small Angle X-Ray Scattering (SAXS) and Rheology. J. Colloid Interface Sci. 2019, 535, 205–213.
Calabrese, V. et al. Surfactant Controlled Zwitterionic Cellulose Nanofibril Dispersions. Soft Matter 2018, 14(38), 7793–7800.

Biography:

My academic records begin in Italy where I graduated in Food science and technology at the University Federico II of Naples (IT). Afterwards i moved to Wageningen University, in the Netherlands, for an MSc in physical chemistry of food. For the MSc thesis I worked very closely to the physical chemistry group where I investigated whey protein - cellulose interactions through a combination of techniques (rheology, microscopy and calorimetric analysis). As second MSc thesis I went to Switzerland at the Nestle' research centre where I focused on the rheological behavior of starch-cellulose dispersions.
For my PhD I moved to Bath, (UK) where I am currently investigating the structure-to-property relationship of cellulose nanofibrils employing different strategies of assembly.

Host:

Prof. Amy Shen