Self-peeling-off in the drying of particulate films mixed with cellulose nanofibres

Industrial applications of cellulose nanofibres (CNFs) include the additive to a wide range of materials from display and cosmetic to pigment inks. Many of these expected applications are based on the mixture of colloidal particles and CNFs in aqueous dispersion. In particular, the mixed dispersion is typically processed in such a way that the droplet or shallow wide volume of dispersion is dried on the substrate or container. In this work, the basic physical properties that these diverse kinds of potential applications share in common are focused on. The colloidal films were fabricated consisting of polystyrene particles and CNFs under the condition of various concentration combinations through the drying of aqueous dispersion in polystyrene well plates. It has been found that the films fabricated from higher concentrations of CNF tend to peel-off spontaneously in the drying process. The basic mechanism of phenomenon is attributed to the contraction of CNFs during the drying by hydrogen bonding between the filaments.