With increasing environmental and ecological concerns due to the use of petroleum based chemicals and products, the synthesis of fine chemicals and functional materials from natural resources is of great public value. Nanocellulose may prove to be one of the most promising green materials of modern times due to its intrinsic properties, renewability and abundance. In this review, we present nanocellulose-based materials from sourcing, synthesis, and surface modification of nanocellulose, to materials formation and applications. Nanocellulose can be sourced from biomass, plants or bacteria, relying of fairly simple, scalable and efficient isolation techniques. Mechanical, chemical, enzymatic treatments, or a combination of these, can be used to extract nanocellulose from natural sources. The properties of nanocellulose are dependent on the source, the isolation technique and potential subsequent surface transformations. Nanocellulose surface modification techniques are typically used to introduce either charged or hydrophobic moieties, and include: amidation, esterification, etherification, silylation, polymerization, urethanization, sulfonationand phosphorylation. Nanocellulose has excellent strength, Young's modulus, biocompatibility, and tunable self-assembly, thixotropic and photonic properties, which are essential for the applications of this material. Nanocellulose participates in the fabrication of a large range of nanomaterials and nanocomposites, including those based on polymers, metals, metal oxides and carbon. In particular, nanocellulose complements organic-based materials, where it imparts its mechanical properties to the composite. Nanocellulose is a promising material whenever material strength, flexibility and/or specific nanostructuring are required. Applications include functional paper, optoelectronics and antibacterial coatings, packaging, mechanically reinforced polymer composites, tissue scaffolds, drug delivery, biosensors, energy storage, catalysis, environmental remediation and 3 electrochemical controlled separation. Phosphorylated nanocellulose is a particularly interesting material, spanning a surprising set of applications in various dimensions including bone scaffolds, adsorbents, flame retardants and as a support for the heterogenization of homogeneous catalysts.

Piezoelectric nanostructured quartz films of high resonance frequencies are needed for microelectronic devices; however, synthesis methods have been frustrated by the inhomogeneous crystal growth, crystal twinning, and loss of nanofeatures upon crystallization. We report the epitaxial growth of nanostructured polycrystalline quartz films on silicon [Si(100)] substrates via the solution deposition and gelation of amorphous silica thin films, followed by thermal treatment. Key to the process is the combined use of either a strontium (Sr(2+)) or barium (Ba(2+)) catalyst with an amphiphilic molecular template. The silica nanostructure constructed by cooperative self-assembly permits homogeneous distribution of the cations, which are responsible for the crystallization of quartz. The low mismatch between the silicon and α-quartz cell parameters selects this particular polymorph, inducing epitaxial growth.