A drop of diluted nanocrystals aqueous suspension was deposited onto
a freshly cleaved mica surface and air-dried. AFM images were
obtainedat roomtemperature inthedynamicmode witha scanrate
of 1 Hz and using Si tips with a curvature radius of less than 10 nm
and a spring constant of 42 N m−1. The thicknesses of nanocrystals
were determined using the VectorScan software (software for
Shimadzu’s SPM-9600). To eliminate the effect of tip radius on
width measurements, we measured the heights ofthe nanocrystals,
Fig. 1. Images of soy hulls before (left) and after the purification (right).
which are not subject to peak broadening artifacts, and assumed
the nanocrystals to be cylindrical in shape (Beck-Candanedo et al.,
2005). A hundred nanocrystals were randomly selected and two
measurements for each nanocrystal were used to determine the
average thickness.