Physicochemical basis for water-actuated movement and stress generation in nonliving plant tissues

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftForschungsartikelBeigetragenBegutachtung

Beitragende

  • L. Bertinetti - , Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (Autor:in)
  • F. D. Fischer - , Montanuniversität Leoben (Autor:in)
  • Peter Fratzl - , Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (Autor:in)

Abstract

Generating stresses and strains through water uptake from atmospheric humidity is a common process in nature, e.g., in seed dispersal. Actuation depends on a balance between chemical interactions and the elastic energy required to accomplish the volume change. In order to study the poorly understood chemical interactions, we combine mechanosorption experiments with theoretical calculations of the swelling behavior to estimate the mechanical energy and extract the contribution of the chemical energy per absorbed water molecule. The latter is highest in the completely dry state and stays almost constant at about 1.2 kT for higher hydrations. This suggests that water bound to the macromolecular components of the wood tissues acquires one additional hydrogen bond per eight water molecules, thus providing energy for actuation. Published by American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Details

OriginalspracheEnglisch
Aufsatznummer238001
FachzeitschriftPhysical review letters
Jahrgang111
Ausgabenummer23
PublikationsstatusVeröffentlicht - 5 Dez. 2013
Peer-Review-StatusJa
Extern publiziertJa

Externe IDs

PubMed 24476305
ORCID /0000-0002-4666-9610/work/142238943