Highly strong luminescent chiral nematic cellulose nanocrystal/PEI composites for anticounterfeiting

Cellulose nanocrystal (CNC)-based materials have gained increasing attention because of their great potential applications in optical devices, anticounterfeiting and structural coatings. However, due to the inherent brittleness of CNC, fabricating highly strong and solvent-resistant CNC derived materials is still an important and challenging task. Here, a straightforward, matrix swelling and in-situ insertion method is developed to fabricate chiral nematic composite films by intercalating poly(ethylene imine) (PEI) into the as-prepared swollen matrix of CNC films. The resulting composite CNC films exhibit a great increase in ultimate strain and toughness and especially have an extremely high folding endurance. Notably, the intercalation of PEI into CNC films also leads to a fluorescence enhancement effect, which endows the films circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) properties. The CPL handedness and dissymmetry factors (glum) of the composite films can be controlled. Furthermore, the CNC composite films display optical responsiveness (structure color, fluorescence intensity) to various stimuli, including ethanol and formaldehyde environments. We expect the current in-situ intercalation technique to be promising in manufacturing foldable encryption materials.