Cellulose II nanocrystal: a promising bio-template for porous or hollow nano SiO 2 fabrication

Cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) particles have been widely used as template for porous materials synthesis. The pore size of porous materials is closely related to the dimension of CNC templates. In the present study, the initial crystal size of raw cellulose material was changed by a simple mercerization treatment, and elliptical- or granule-like CNC with allomorph of cellulose II (CNC-II) was obtained by following sulfuric acid hydrolysis. Then CNC\SiO 2 core–shell particles and porous SiO 2 were successfully fabricated based on the templates of CNC-II and conventional CNC, respectively. The results showed that the morphology of CNC\SiO 2 core–shell particles were well copied by corresponding templates. After the template is removed by calcination, the obtained porous SiO 2 particles synthesized by CNC-II exhibited a smaller and narrower pore width distribution.