Lockhart with a twist: Modelling cellulose microfibril deposition and reorientation reveals twisting plant cell growth mechanisms

Cellulose Microfibril/Nanofibril and Its Nanocompsites

Cellulose micro/nanofibril (CMNF) as a reinforcing material for composites is becoming more and more attractive to researchers in composite science because of its potential lightweight and high strength. CMNF is generally prepared by either physical treatment, e.g., by a high pressure homogenizer and/or high pressure refiner, or chemical treatments, e.g., acid hydrolysis. In this study, attempt...

The Size of the Cellulose Microfibril

Recently the lateral width of the cellulose microfibril has been estimated as 30 A rather than about 150 to 200 A, by extrapolation of data from model shadowing experiments. The difference was attributed to a layer of metal deposited during shadowing. However, direct photographs of the same microfibrils parallel and perpendicular to the direction of shadowing, of unshadowed portions of microfib...

The impact of alterations in lignin deposition on cellulose organization of the plant cell wall

BACKGROUND Coordination of synthesis and assembly of the polymeric components of cell walls is essential for plant growth and development. Given the degree of co-mingling and cross-linking among cell wall components, cellulose organization must be dependent on the organization of other polymers such as lignin. Here we seek to identify aspects of that codependency by studying the structural orga...

Cellulose Microfibril Angle in Wood and Its Dynamic Mechanical Significance

Modelling Plant Variation Through Growth

This paper introduces a method for creating naturally varied plants from a given basic plant model. Previous techniques create variation in plants by introducing local randomness to the plant model’s description. However, randomness is restricted by the model’s parameterization and lack of correlation between local features making varying global properties (e.g. branch and stem curvature) diffi...