Coarse-Grain Model for Natural Cellulose Fibrils in Explicit Water

Understanding biomass structure and dynamics on multiple time and length scales is important for the development of cellulosic biofuels. To this aim, we have developed a coarse-grain (CG) model for molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of cellulose fibrils in explicit water based on target observables from fully atomistic simulations. This model examines the significance of the presence of explicit solvent and compares results with the previous, implicit solvent CG cellulose models. The present, constraint-free CG model is used to generate a series of noncrystalline fibril structures using a coupling parameter, λ, between fully crystalline and fully amorphous potentials. By exploring various structural parameters, including the root-mean-square deviation, root-mean-square fluctuations, radius of gyration, and persistence length, we find the crystalline-to-amorphous state transition takes place at λ ≈ 0.386. The persistence length of cellulose fibril in the transition region corresponds to that of native cellulose fibrils. The transition between crystalline and amorphous fibrils occurs at larger values of λ in explicit water than in the implicit case. Detailed analysis of individual energetic contribution to the transition reveals that the nonbonded interactions, in particular, that of cellulose–water interaction, plays a significant role in the observed crystalline to amorphous transition of cellulose fibril. The present study thus highlights the importance of solvent presence that cannot be adequately described with the previous implicit solvent model. The present method provides an accurate and constraint-free approach for deriving a variety of structures of cellulose in water, with a wide range of crystallinity, suitable for incorporation into large-scale models of lignocellulosic biomass.