Continuous Assembly of Cellulose Nanofibrils and Nanocrystals into Strong Macrofibers through Microfluidic SpinningShow others and affiliations
2018 (English)In: Advanced Materials Technologies, E-ISSN 2365-709X, article id 1800557Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Microfluidic fiber spinning is a promising technique for assembling cellulose nanomaterials into macroscopic fibers. However, its implementation requires upscalabe fabrication processes while maintaining high strength of the fibers, which could not be previously achieved. Herein, a continuous wet spinning process based on microfluidic flow focusing is developed to produce strong fibers from cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) and nanocrystals (CNCs). Fibers with an average breaking tenacity as high as 29.5 cN tex−1 and Young's modulus of 1146 cN tex−1 are reported for the first time, produced from nonhighly purified CNF grades. Using the same developed method, wet spinning of fibers from CNCs is achieved for the first time, reaching an average Young's modulus of 1263 cN tex−1 and a breaking tenacity of 10.6 cN tex−1, thus exhibiting strength twice as high as that of common CNC films. A rather similar stiffness of CNC and CNF spun fibers may originate from similar degrees of alignment, as confirmed by wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) and birefringence measurements, whereas lower strength may primarily arise from the shorter length of CNCs compared to that of CNFs. The benefit of CNCs is their higher solids content in the dopes. By combining both CNCs and CNFs, the fiber properties can be tuned.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2018. article id 1800557
Keywords [en]
cellulose nanocrystals, cellulose nanofibrils, flow focusing, microfluidic fiber spinning, nanocellulose, Cellulose, Cellulose derivatives, Elastic moduli, Fibers, Microfluidics, Nanocrystals, Nanofibers, Tenacity, X ray scattering, Birefringence measurements, Cellulose nano-crystals, Cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs), Fabrication process, Fiber spinning, Wet spinning process, Spinning (fibers)
National Category
Natural Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-36675DOI: 10.1002/admt.201800557Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85058288929OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-36675DiVA, id: diva2:1273545
2018-12-212018-12-212023-06-08Bibliographically approved