Microstructures and mechanical properties of fiber cells from Echinocactus grusonii cactus spine

Spine is the sharpest and hardest part of many plants, which contains highly aligned fiber cells. Here, we report the microstructures and mechanical properties as well as their correlation of single spine fiber cells (SFCs) from the cactus Echinocactus grusonii. It is found that the SFCs are 0.32-0.57 mm in length and 4.6-6.0 μm in width, yielding an aspect ratio of 53-124. X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometry show that the spine fiber is mainly made up of cellulose I with a crystallinity index up to 76%. Nanoindentation tests show that a natural spine presents a high modulus of 17 GPa. Removing hemicellulose and lignin from the SFC significantly reduces its modulus to 0.487 GPa, demonstrating the critical role of adhesives hemicellulose and lignin in affecting the mechanical properties of the SFCs. This finding sheds light on designing novel bio-inspired high-performance composite nanomaterials with aligned nanofibers, such as using hemicellulose and lignin as adhesive in making carbon nanotube fibers.