Premium
From Wood to Textiles: Top‐Down Assembly of Aligned Cellulose Nanofibers
Author(s) -
Jia Chao,
Chen Chaoji,
Kuang Yudi,
Fu Kun,
Wang Yilin,
Yao Yonggang,
Kronthal Spencer,
Hitz Emily,
Song Jianwei,
Xu Fujun,
Liu Boyang,
Hu Liangbing
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
advanced materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 10.707
H-Index - 527
eISSN - 1521-4095
pISSN - 0935-9648
DOI - 10.1002/adma.201801347
Subject(s) - materials science , textile , nanofiber , cellulose , composite material , economic shortage , toughness , engineered wood , synthetic fiber , fiber , chemical engineering , linguistics , philosophy , government (linguistics) , engineering
Advanced textiles made of macroscopic fibers are usually prepared from synthetic fibers, which have changed lives over the past century. The shortage of petrochemical resources, however, greatly limits the development of the textile industry. Here, a facile top‐down approach for fabricating macroscopic wood fibers for textile applications (wood‐textile fibers) comprising aligned cellulose nanofibers directly from natural wood via delignification and subsequent twisting is demonstrated. Inherently aligned cellulose nanofibers are well retained, while the microchannels in the delignified wood are squeezed and totally removed by twisting, resulting in a dense structure with approximately two times higher mechanical strength (106.5 vs 54.9 MPa) and ≈20 times higher toughness (7.70 vs 0.36 MJ m −3 ) than natural wood. Dramatically different from natural wood, which is brittle in nature, the resultant wood‐textile fibers are highly flexible and bendable, likely due to the twisted structures. The wood‐textile fibers also exhibit excellent knitting properties and dyeability, which are critical for textile applications. Furthermore, functional wood‐textile fibers can be achieved by preinfiltrating functional materials in the delignified wood film before twisting. This top‐down approach of fabricating aligned macrofibers is simple, scalable, and cost‐effective, representing a promising direction for the development of smart textiles and wearable electronics.