Associate Professor Song Lixin from the School of Materials Science and Engineering, in Collaboration with Na Haining’s Team from Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, CAS, Makes Progress in Natural Polymer Structure Regulation

On November 28, 2025, the collaborative team of Associate Professor Song Lixin from the School of Materials Science and Engineering and Professor Na Haining’s research group from the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), published a research paper titled “Magnetic nanorods induced construction of multiresponsive anisotropic nanocellulose films for enhanced TENG output” in the international journal Advanced Functional Materials. Shenyang University of Chemical Technology is the primary affiliation for this paper. Wang Tianyu, a master’s student from the School of Materials Science and Engineering, is the first author. Associate Professor Song Lixin from the School of Materials Science and Engineering, along with Professor Na Haining and Engineer Huang Juncheng from the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, CAS, are the co-corresponding authors.

Figure: Magnetic Field-Induced Orientation of Nanocellulose via Magnetic Nanorods Enhances TENG Output Performance

Nanocellulose (CNF) inherently possesses significant anisotropy. However, due to the strong interactions between CNF fibers, they generally achieve only random arrangement in the formed cellulose-based materials, failing to transfer the excellent characteristics of CNF to large-scale materials. This has been a major difficulty in constructing high-performance material devices using CNF. To address this, by designing magnetic nanorod structures and leveraging their morphological anisotropy and magnetic moment orientation effect, a highly ordered arrangement was achieved under a weak magnetic field of only tens of millitesla (mT). Furthermore, simulation studies further revealed the induction mechanism for the highly oriented CNF structure. Guided by the magnetic field, the oriented cellulose structure increased the material's dielectric constant from 8.67 to 15.21. Consequently, the electrical output performance of the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) using this as a core device was enhanced by 971%, while also exhibiting excellent magnetic response regulation, flexibility, and humidity sensitivity. This achievement not only represents a breakthrough in regulating the internal structural orientation of natural biomass-based materials but also demonstrates significant potential for improving the performance of self-powered flexible electronic devices. It injects new vitality into the high-quality transformation and utilization of biomass materials and the development of flexible electronic material technologies.

Translator: Myradov Tahyr

Reviewer: Luc Thy My Le

Final approval: Wang Meng