Abstract
This study compares the structural, optical, and mechanical characteristics of chitin nanopapers fabricated through mechanical fibrillation and TEMPO-mediated oxidation. The TEMPO-oxidized nanopaper exhibited higher optical transparency (approximately 92%) than the mechanically fibrillated sample (around 60%), primarily due to enhanced nanofiber dispersion and smaller fibril diameters. In contrast, the mechanically produced nanopaper showed greater crystallinity (above 90%) and stronger hydrogen bonding, resulting in higher tensile strength and Young’s modulus compared with the oxidized counterpart. Microscopic analyses confirmed the more homogeneous and well-dispersed network in TEMPO-treated samples, while spectroscopic results indicated the presence of carboxylate groups introduced by oxidation. The research overall highlights the usability of both nanopaper types in different applications and how TEMPO-oxidized nanopaper fits best under transparent and biodegradable packaging and mechanically treated nanopaper in applications requiring more strength.
Data availability
The data provided in this study are available to the corresponding author and can be presented on considerable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful for the support provided by the Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources.
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Alireza Mohammadlou: Data curation, Software, Resources, Formal analysis, Writing-original draft, supervision, and visualization. Mohammadreza Dehghani Firouzabadi : Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Investigation, Writing-original draft. Hossein Yousefi : Project administration and Methodology. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Mohammadlou, A., Dehghani Firouzabadi, M. & Yousefi, H. Comparison of the properties of nanopaper from chitin nanofibers prepared by mechanical and TEMPO-oxidized methods. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-35116-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-35116-1
