Bioinspired Materials Science and Engineering

4Three‐dimensional Biofabrication on Nematic Ordered Cellulose Templates

Tetsuo Kondo*

Graduate School of Bioresource and Bioenvironmental Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

4.1 Introduction

The unique interaction of biological systems with entirely synthetic molecular assemblies has prompted the consideration of a new generation of approaches to controlled nano‐assembly. Quite some time ago, we found a unique phenomenon that the molecular tracks of nematic ordered cellulose (NOC) [1–3] substrate regulated the direction of the fiber secretion of Gluconacetobacter xylinus, a Gram‐negative bacterium that synthesizes and extrudes a cellulose nanofiber. This resulted also in regulating the direction of the bacterial movement caused by the inverse force of the secretion. An epitaxial deposition of the nanofibers was induced due to the strong interaction between the nascent nanofibrils, and influenced the order of molecules of the template [4]. This indicated that the conjunction of directed biosynthesis and the ordered fabrication from the nano to the micro scales could lead to new methodologies for the design of functional materials with the desired nanostructures.

In the unique phenomenon, the most influential factor for the regulated bacterial movement was the surface properties due to the nano/micro structure of the template. The NOC substrate where cellulose molecules are highly ordered, but not assembled to form the crystalline state, was prepared by uniaxial stretching ...