Tough poly(ethylene glycol)-sized bacterial cellulose sheet for high impact strength laminated acrylic composites
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Herrera, Natalia
Li, Joanne
Lee, Koon-Yang
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Dried and well-consolidated sheet of bacterial cellulose (BC) nanofibrils is a material structure that possesses high modulus and strength but is also brittle, which limits its potential in various advanced composite applications. Here, we report a simple method of enhancing the toughness of BC sheet by sizing the BC nanofibrils with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG). This hinders interfibril hornification and facilitates large-scale BC nanofibril debonding, slippage and reorientation upon deformation. The PEG-sized BC sheets show high tensile strain-at-failure and work of fracture compared to neat BC sheet. PEG-sized BC reinforced laminated acrylic composites achieve a flatwise Charpy impact strength of up to 26 kJ m−2. This is a remarkable increase over the impact strength of neat impact-modified acrylic of only 12 kJ m−2, especially when the BC loading required to achieve this radical improvement is only 0.2 wt-%. Our study opens new paradigm in using low BC loading to achieve performance improvements suitable for high value composite applications.
Date Issued
2022-05-01
Date Acceptance
2022-01-24
Citation
Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing, 2022, 156, pp.1-8
ISSN
1359-835X
Publisher
Elsevier
Start Page
1
End Page
8
Journal / Book Title
Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing
Volume
156
Copyright Statement
© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Identifier
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000793350000002&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Subjects
Science & Technology
Technology
Engineering, Manufacturing
Materials Science, Composites
Engineering
Materials Science
Nanocomposites
Biocomposite
Fracture toughness, Nanocellulose
FRACTURE-TOUGHNESS
ELASTIC-MODULUS
PERFORMANCE
INTERFACE
NETWORKS
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 106845
Date Publish Online
2022-01-29