Cellulose nanocrystals enhanced viscoelasticity and temperature-resistance of rosin-based wormlike micelles: Inducing the formation of hydrogels

Wormlike micelles are attractive soft materials, their further combinations with nanoparticles providing a novel kind of functional materials in various applications. Using rosin as the starting materials, a biobased surfactant (CMPA2Na) was synthesized. Its structure was characterized using 1 H NMR, FT-IR and MS. Viscoelastic wormlike micelles were prepared using CMPA2Na with cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB). Wormlike micellar system enchanced by cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) was further constructed. The viscoelasticity, microstructure and interaction mechanism of the CMPA2Na/CTAB/CNCs system were comprhesively investigated using FT-IR, rheology and Cryo-TEM. The viscoelasticity monotonously increased with increasing addition amount of CNCs. And the viscoelastic solutions transformed into hydrogels as the addition amount of CNCs was larger than 0.5 %. Unexpectedly, a dramatical increase of 67 times in viscosity and 10 times in elasticity were obtained, surpassing the reported wormlike micelles combined with nanoparticles. In addition, the wormlike micelles enhanced with CNCs could maintain the excellent viscoelasticity under high temperature. The network of the wormlike micelles was prominently strengthened by the strong hydrogen bonds and electrostatic interactions between the wormlike micelles and CNCs. The study provided a biobased wormlike micelle modified by nanoparticles with high viscoelasticity and excellent temperature-resistance, facilitating the applications of biomass resources in the petroleum industry.