Article revealing the importance of particle concentration during ultrasonication of nanorods

ALCEMIST team members Zornitza Tosheva and Jan Lagerwall (both of the ESMP group in Luxembourg) published a very thorough study that has been a long time in the making, demonstrating how the generation of shear-induced nematic phase during ultrasonication of cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) suspensions greatly improves the results of the sonication. This means that the concentration of nanoparticles during sonication, which frequently is an almost ignored parameter, plays a huge role, and this applies also to other anisometric nanoparticles, like carbon nanotubes, graphene flakes and so on.

The paper, titled Orientational ordering benefits nanorod sonication, is published (open access) in Physical Review Materials. You can read it here. And here is a Linked In post introducing the paper for a broader scientific audience.


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Tags: CNC