Flexible Nanopaper Composed of Wood-Derived Nanofibrillated Cellulose and Graphene Building Blocks

Nanopaper has attracted considerable interest in the fields of films and paper research.However,the challenge of integrating the many advantages of nanopaper still remains.Herein,we developed a facile strategy to fabricate multifunctional nanocomposite paper(NGCP)composed of wood-derived nanofibrillated cellulose(NFC)and graphene as building blocks.NFC suspension was consisted of long and entangled NFCs(10–30 nm in width)and their aggregates.Before NGCP formation,NFC was chemically modified with a silane coupling agent to ensure that it could interact strongly with graphene in NGCP.The resulting NGCP samples were flexible and could be bent repeatedly without any structural damage.Within the NGCP samples,the high aspect ratio of NFC made a major contribution to its high mechanical strength,whereas the sheet-like graphene endowed the NGCP with electrical resistance and electrochemical activity.The mechanical strength of the NGCP samples decreased as their graphene content increased.However,the electrical resistance and electrochemical activity of the NGCP samples both rose with increasing content of graphene.The NGCPs still kept advantageous mechanical properties even at high temperatures around 300℃ because of the high thermal stability of NFCs and their strong entangled web-like structures.In view of its sustainable building blocks and multifunctional characteristics,the NGCP developed in this work is promising as low-cost and high-performance nanopaper.

Poly dimethylsiloxane/carbon nanofiber nanocomposites: fabrication and characterization of electrical and thermal properties

This article presents the fabrication and characterization of poly dimethylsiloxane/carbon nanofiber(CNF)-based nanocomposites.Although silica and carbon nanoparticles have been traditionally used to reinforce mechanical properties in PDMS matrix nanocom-posites,this article focuses on understanding their impacts on electrical and thermal properties.By adjusting both the silica and CNF concentrations,12 different nanocomposite formulations were studied,and the thermal and electrical properties of these materials were experimentally characterized.The developed nano-composites were prepared using a solvent-assisted method pro-viding uniform dispersion of the CNFs in the polymer matrix.Scanning electron microscopy was employed to determine the dispersion of the CNFs at different length scales.The thermal properties,such as thermal stability and thermal diffusivity,of the developed nanocomposites were studied using thermogravi-metirc and laser flash techniques.Furthermore,the electrical volume conductivity of each type of nanocomposite was tested using the four-probe method to eliminate the effects of contact electrical resistance during measurement.Experimental results showed that both CNFs and silica were able to impact on the overall properties of the synthesized PDMS/CNF nanocomposites.The developed nanocomposites have the potential to be applied to the development of new load sensors in the future.