Polymer, 2025, 335, 128824.

Expanding application areas is crucial for xylans, while amorphous structure restricts their application scenarios. In this work, rod-like nanocrystals (XyNCs) were prepared via a ‘bottom-up’ method by using amorphous xylans as substrate, and then were used as stabilizer for preparing oil-in-water emulsion. By using this Pickering emulsion as template, polymer microspheres could be fabricated. Reducing the monomer contents in the oil phase enhanced the surface wrinkled level and the interior porosity, resulting in significantly increase of specific surface area of microspheres. In addition, both the surface and internal structures of microspheres were highly dependent on the solvent polarity and boiling points. Therefore, microsphere structure could be well tailored by altering solvent types of the XyNC-stabilized Pickering emulsion. The results showed that the polymer microspheres with regulated structure possessed desirable adsorption capacity and reusability for treating sewage. This work proposes an attractive strategy of expanding application scenario of xylans, and also provides a systematic solution on how to regulate the polymer microsphere structure by using the emulsion stabilized with polysaccharide nanocrystals as template.

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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032386125008109