Study of adhesion force between cellulose micro-sphere and cellulose membrane

Development of novel high added value cellulose products requires improved understanding of interaction forces, which includes also the adhesion force, between cellulose surfaces. However, the interaction forces between cellulose surfaces have not been adequately studied. In this paper, cellulose-cellulose adhesion force is studied by using a customized dual-probe atomic force microscope (AFM) with a cellulose colloidal probe. Two different types of cellulose membranes (CM) with cellulose concentration of 1.5% and 2% are used as test samples, and about ten thousand tests are repeated on each CM sample type. Adhesion force histograms are provided and they show a large difference between the two types of CM. The average adhesion force on CM 1.5% is approximately 10 times higher than that on CM 2%. On CM 1.5%, the adhesion forces concentrate on the range from 450nN to 650nN, whereas on CM 2% the force distribute from 50 to 75nN. The difference in the adhesion force on these two types of CM can be attributed to their difference in surface roughness and surface energy.