Macrofibers with High Mechanical Performance Based on Aligned Bacterial Cellulose Nanofibers

Abstract

Bacterial cellulose (BC) nanofibers represent an emerging class of highly crystalline bionanofibers with high intrinsic mechanical properties. The remarkable nanofibers with oriented structure and strong interfibrillar interactions can realize high-performance materials. In this study, we demonstrated that macrofibers based on aligned BC nanofibers could be prepared by wet spinning and drawing procedures. The relationship between process conditions, structure, and mechanical properties of macrofibers were investigated. The obtained macrofibers exhibited Young's modulus of 16.4 GPa and tensile strength of 248.6 MPa under the optimum process conditions, in which nanofibers displayed a high degree of alignment. Furthermore, we enhanced the interfacial interactions between nanofibers and obtained better mechanical performance by multivalent ion cross-linking. After exchanging the monovalent Na by Fe, the dried macrofiber reached Young's modulus of 22.9 GPa and tensile strength of 357.5 MPa. Particularly, the resulting macrofibers still maintained good mechanical properties with Young's modulus of 15.9 GPa and tensile strength of 262.2 MPa in the wet condition. This research provided a good method to fabricate macrofibers from BC nanofibers with good properties by continuous wet-spinning process. These macrofibers can be easily functionalized and have promising potential applications in smart textiles, biosensor, and structural reinforcement.

High-Strength, High-Toughness Aligned Polymer-Based Nanocomposite Reinforced with Ultralow Weight Fraction of Functionalized Nanocellulose

“…Compared with other studies on high-performance nanocellulose-based materials with anisotropic structure as shown inFigure 6c,19,36,[58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70] our aligned P0.1TOCNF-g-PEG exhibits competitive ultimate strength and superior toughness with only 0.1 wt% of nanocellulose, indicating a promising future of utilizing this kind of materials in low-cost and environment-friendly applications.However, it needs to be noted that there is no significant difference in the elastic modulus of the aligned samples as illustrated inFigure 6b. This indicates that the elastic modulus of the aligned PLA-based nanocomposites with such a low fraction of reinforcement is mainly controlled by the alignment and crystallization of PLA chains.…”

3D printed hydrogels with oxidized cellulose nanofibers and silk fibroin for the proliferation of lung epithelial stem cells

“…After 1 min later, NaClO (7.8 mL) was immediately added to the suspension. Oxidation time was 1 h and pH was 10.5 at room temperature (Yao et al 2017 ). The OBC was dialyzed in distilled water for 1 week and concentrated to 7 wt% by centrifuging at 12,000 rpm for 10 min.…”

A Cuboid Spider Silk: Structure–Function Relationship and Polypeptide Signature

“…Deconvolution of the amide I band in a single spectra provided an estimation of 22% ± 2.6% β‐sheet content, 76% ± 3.2% random coil/α‐helix, and 2.0% ± 1.3% β‐turn, respectively (Figure 3C and Table 2 ). It was demonstrated that stretching and shear force could further improve the mechanical properties through improvement of fibril alignment or ionic crosslinking,33–35 which also occurred in the spinning of spider silk 36. Thus, a 5% strain was performed to study structural response of the silk fiber.…”