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Structures and mechanical properties of electrospun cellulose nanofibers/poly(ε‐caprolactone) composites
Author(s) -
Taniguchi Hotaka,
Kurokawa Naruki,
Inukai Shunya,
Hotta Atsushi
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of applied polymer science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.575
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-4628
pISSN - 0021-8995
DOI - 10.1002/app.49307
Subject(s) - nanofiber , caprolactone , electrospinning , materials science , cellulose acetate , cellulose , composite material , composite number , scanning electron microscope , polymer , modulus , fiber , polymer chemistry , chemical engineering , copolymer , engineering
Abstract Poly(ε‐caprolactone) (PCL) is one of the ecofriendly biodegradable polymers with excellent moldability but with rather low mechanical properties especially for the industrial and biomedical use. In this research, to overcome the problem, the two types of cellulose nanofibers, the cellulose acetate nanofibers (CA‐NF) and the cellulose nanofibers (C‐NF), were composited into PCL for the enhancement of the mechanical properties of PCL. CA‐NF were prepared by electrospinning and converted into C‐NF afterward by deacetylation. It was found that the Young's modulus of the CA‐NF/PCL composite at the fiber concentration of 35 wt% significantly increased by ~3 times as compared with that of neat PCL, whereas C‐NF/PCL of the same fiber concentration also increased by ~4.5 times. It was also found that the Young's moduli of CA‐NF/PCL nearly reached the theoretical values calculated by the equation suggested by Tsai, but that the Young's moduli of C‐NF/PCL could not reach the theoretical values. It indicates that CA‐NF possessed better compatibility with PCL than C‐NF, agreeing well with the fracture‐surface analyses of the two composites by the scanning electron microscopy.