Polymer and Mesoporous Silica Microspheres with Chiral Nematic Order from Cellulose Nanocrystals

Polymer microspheres with chiral nematic order were obtained from an emulsion polymerization technique using cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) as the template. The growth of the liquid crystals from tiny tactoids to droplets with spherical symmetry was captured and investigated by both optical and electron microscopy for the first time. The size of the microspheres could be tuned between tens and hundreds of micrometers; to obtain single, integrated chiral nematic kernels, the size of water droplets in the emulsion should be similar to that of CNC tactoids. Through a double-matrix templating method, novel silica microspheres with chiral nematic order were fabricated, which showed a high surface area and mesoporosity. The methods developed here may help to reveal the evolution of other self-assembling systems, and these materials have potential applications in optical devices and chiral separations.