Cellulose Nanocrystal for Stronger Carbon Fiber Composites
Polymers that are reinforced by ultra-fine strands of carbon fibers are regarded as perfect samples of composite materials being as light as a feather and strong enough to replace steel.
This class of reinforced composite polymers has been attracting a lot of attention because of their versatility in applications in numerous industries. In particular, carbon nanotubes can significantly increase the functionality of these composites. Nonetheless, the chemical processing employed to incorporate carbon nanotubes distributes them heterogeneously unevenly across the composite restricting a range of useful qualities and causing poor strength.
Introduction
According to a study by Texas University, a natural plant product known as cellulose nanocrystals is used to coat and pin carbon nanotubes so uniformly on the carbon fiber composites.1
Carbon-Fiber Composites
This technique functions considerably faster than conventional methods and makes it possible to design carbon fiber composites to fall into the nanoscopic scale. Basically, composites are designed on layered substrates. For example, polymeric composites are made of fibers with numerous layers such as carbon fibers and a matrix of a particular polymer. This layered structure is indeed a sign of the composites’ strength or weakness through which any sort of damage in the layers can consequently lead to fractures which are technically called delamination. Carbon nanotubes are used as additives in order to strengthen carbon fiber composites and give them some desirable functionalities including thermal and electrical conductivity. Technically, the chemical processes and modification techniques that are employed to incorporate the carbon nanotubes throughout the bulk of composites clump up the nanoparticles and reduce the overall benefits and advantages of the addition of these particles. In fact, the problem with these nanostructures and nanoparticles is partly similar to what happens when some coarse coffee is added to milk and forms an agglomerated powder that sticks together. Therefore, it is necessary to separate carbon nanotubes from each other for better design and application. To get over this problem cellulose which can easily be achieved as an extraction from recycled wood pulp is used to facilitate the uniform distribution of carbon nanotubes throughout the composite. These cellulose nanocrystals contain hydrophilic segments within their molecules capable of absorbing water along with another segment with hydrophobic behavior. This unique molecular structure comes up with an excellent solution to synthesize composites on the nanoscale.1
Cellulose
Cellulose occurs abundantly and naturally as raw material on Earth amounting to billions of tons made by many different plant species. Technically, cellulose is a cheap, lightweight, thermally stable organic compound and one of the most common agents to meet the standards of sustainable chemistry since it is naturally biodegradable as well as renewable. Within plants, cellulose fibers are produced by microfibrils that are highly crystalline entities. In the past years, cellulose has drawn a lot of attention due to its considerable impact on areas like flexible electronics and displays, textiles, sensors, laminates, pharmaceutical coatings, food, and actuators 2. Chemically, cellulose fibers comprise a chain of hundreds to thousands of D-glucose in a linear configuration. They are regarded as the important structural members of different species of algae and the walls of green plant cells. The walls of plants cells are composed of cellulose microfibrils with crystalline structure with a width of about 93 nm containing some 20 to 40 fully extended cellulose chains which behave like strengthened steel in the fabric of the walls and are surrounded by polysaccharides including hydrophobic non-crystalline lignin and hemicellulose which are nanocrystalline structures too. Therefore, it should be taken into consideration that cellulose-based nanostructures like cellulose nanofibers are originally biomolecules and abundantly found on Earth as well as being synthesized naturally in larger quantities through the natural photosynthesis procedure 3.
Reference
https://nanografi.com/blog/cellulose-nanocrystal-for-stronger-carbon-fiber-composites/
