Morphology control and optical properties of organic nanostructures based on thermotropic liquid crystalline benzoylated bacterial cellulose

Organic nanostructures with different morphologies (nanoplatelets, nanotubes, and nanoparticles) of thermotropic liquid crystalline benzoylated bacterial cellulose (BBC) have been prepared with a reprecipitation method by dropwising tetrahydrofuran (THF) solution of BBC into water. The BBC concentration in THF proves crucial for the shapes of assembled BBC nanostructures. These novel BBC nanostructures exhibit apparent UV–vis blue-shifted in absorption peaks and enhanced fluorescence intensity up to 30–60 times compared with THF dilute solution of BBC. The formation mechanism of different nanostructures was tentatively proposed based on the BBC molecular structure.