Using Cellulose Nanocrystals as a Sustainable Additive to Enhance Hydrophilicity, Mechanical and Thermal Properties of Poly(vinylidene fluoride)/Poly(methyl methacrylate) Blend

Abstract

The aim of this study is to use cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) as a sustainable additive for improving hydrophilicity, mechanical and thermal properties of poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF)/poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) blend. A casting-evaporation method was used to prepare the nanocomposites and their surface wettability, mechanical, thermal and morphological properties were characterized. With the addition of only 3 wt% CNCs, tensile strength, tensile modulus, dynamic storage modulus at 45 o C, static water contact angle, and onset thermal decomposition temperature of the ternary composite exhibited 32 %, 70 %, 36 %, 6.1 o C and 4.0 o C increase, respectively. As the CNC content increased to 6 wt%, further improvement was observed in all above properties except tensile strength. The observed performance enhancement is attributed to a considerably increased crystallinity of PVDF (e.g., from 28.5% for the binary blend to 43.3% for ternary composite at the 3 wt% CNC level). Our present work demonstrates the importance of using sustainable CNCs to achieve synergetic improvement in physical and mechanical performance of PVDF/PMMA blend, suggesting a facile way to prepare nanocomposites for potential membrane-based separation applications.

Poly(vinylidene fluoride)/cellulose nanocrystals composites: rheological, hydrophilicity, thermal and mechanical properties

“…The elongation at break decreased from 59 % for neat PVDF to 5 % for 6 wt% CNCs, which indicated that the composite became brittle in comparison with neat PVDF. Similar results were also reported in other literatures (Fortunati et al 2012;Zhang et al 2015). A similar reinforcing effect was also observed from DMA tests (Fig.…”

Physicochemical and Mechanical Properties of Polypropylene-cellulose Nanocrystal Nanocomposites: Effects of Manufacturing Process and Chemical Grafting

“…Materials combined with nanocellulose in high-tech fields (Korhhonen et al 2011;Chun et al 2012;Anis et al 2014;Choi et al 2014;Spinella et al 2015;Zhang et al 2015;Li et al 2016) have many useful and unexpected properties (Dufresne 2017;Ziaei-Tabari et al 2017), and their potential has attracted much attention from many researchers. In particular, cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) can be an excellent reinforcement in polymeric nanocomposites due to their intrinsic crystalline structure.…”

Electrospun Poly(Ethylene Oxide) Fibers Reinforced with Poly (Vinylpyrrolidone) Polymer and Cellulose Nanocrystals

“…One effective way to improve their strength and commercial use potential is to incorporate nano-sized reinforcement into the polymeric matrix [6][7][8]. Among the nano-fillers, cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) have been considered as a competitive candidate, because of their high strength and Young's modulus [6,9]. In addition, CNCs are inherently renewable, biodegradable, and biocompatible, leading to long-term sustainability [10,11].…”