Yang, Han; Zhang, Yefei; Kato, Ryo; Rowan, Stuart J.
Preparation of cellulose nanofibers from Miscanthus x. Giganteus by ammonium persulfate oxidation
Carboxylic acid functionalized cellulose nanofibers (MxG-CNFA-CO2H) were successfully isolated from a sustainable grass hybrid Miscanthus x. Giganteus by a new two-step chemical oxidation, that involves bleach treatment and ammonium persulfate oxidation, followed by ultrasonication. The resulting MxG-CNFA-CO2Hs have ca. 1200?mmol/kg carboxylic acid surface groups, an aspect ratio of 230 (height
Investigation of Micromechanical Behavior and Voiding of Polyethylene Terephthalate/Polyethylene-stat-methyl Acrylate Blends during Tensile Deformation
Lee, Bongjoon; Onbulak, Sebla; Xu, Yuewen; Topolkaraev, Vasily; McEneany, Ryan; Bates, Frank; Hillmyer, Marc
Micromechanical deformation of polyethylene terephthalate (PET)/ethylene-stat-methyl acrylate copolymer blends was investigated for various MA contents and molar masses of p(E-s-MA). The copolymers were synthesized by ring-opening metathesis polymerization and subsequent hydrogenation. Varying the MA content and molar mass of the copolymer alters the interfacial adhesion between the
Transparent, Lightweight, and High Strength Polyethylene Films by a Scalable Continuous Extrusion and Solid-State Drawing Process
Lin, Yunyin; Tu, Wei; Verpaalen, Rob C. P.; Zhang, Han; Bastiaansen, Cees W. M.; Peijs, Ton
The continuous production of transparent high strength ultra-drawn high-density polyethylene films or tapes is explored using a cast film extrusion and solid-state drawing line. Two methodologies are explored to achieve such high strength transparent polyethylene films; i) the use of suitable additives like 2-(2H-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4,6-ditertpentylphenol (BZT) and ii) solid-state drawing at…
Shape and Phase Transitions in a PEGylated Phospholipid System
Viitala, Lauri; Pajari, Saija; Gentile, Luigi; Määttä, Jukka; Gubitosi, Marta; Deska, Jan; Sammalkorpi, Maria; Olsson, Ulf; Murtomäki, Lasse
Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) polymers and PEG-conjugated lipids are widely used in bioengineering and drug transport applications. A PEG layer in a drug carrier increases hydrophilic repulsion, inhibits membrane fusion and serum opsonin interactions, and prolongs the storage and circulation time. It can also change the carrier shape and have an…
Morphologies of Polyisoprene-Grafted Silica Nanoparticles in Model Elastomers
Bonnevide, Marine; Jimenez, Andrew M.; Dhara, Deboleena; Phan, Trang N.T.; Malicki, Nicolas; Abbas, Zaid M.; Benicewicz, Brian; Kumar, Sanat K.; Couty, Marc; Gigmes, Didier; Jestin, Jacques
We control nanoparticle (NP) dispersion by leveraging the entropic and enthalpic effects associated with mixing silica NPs grafted with polyisoprene (PI) chains into matrices of varying degrees of chemical dissimilarity. Previous work in this area has primarily focused on entropic factors alone, and hence, this work represents a significant advance…
Preparation of isoporous membranes from low χ block copolymers via co-assembly with H-bond interacting homopolymers
Zhu, Guo-Dong; Yang, Cao-Ying; Yin, Yu-Rong; Yi, Zhuan; Chen, Xian-Hong; Liu, Li-Fen; Gao, Cong-Jie
Self-assembly and non-solvent induced phase separation (SNIPS) was extensively used in the fabrication of isoporous membranes for its compatibility with massive production. However, for the well-defined SNIPS, preparation of isoporous membranes from low χ block copolymers is challenging because self-assembly of these polymers is usually hard to induce. In this…
A highly transparent and ultra-stretchable conductor with stable conductivity during large deformation
Lei, Zhouyue; Wu, Peiyi
Intrinsically stretchable conductors have undergone rapid development in the past few years and a variety of strategies have been established to improve their electro-mechanical properties. However, ranging from electronically to ionically conductive materials, they are usually vulnerable either to large deformation or at high/low temperatures, mainly due to the fact…
Diversified α-phase nanostructure of isotactic polypropylene under cylindrical confinement via cross diffraction analysis
Zeng, Xingming; Zhang, Shuailin; Zheng, Nan; Yu, Shichen; Li, Xiaoguang; Ageishi, Masaki; Lotz, Bernard; Liu, Gengxin; Cao, Yan
Understanding polymer nanostructures is a prerequisite to manipulate their physical properties. Molecular self-assembly under confinement effectively generates novel polymer nanostructures. However, in one confined system, diffraction signals of different nanostructures are merged in a typical two-dimensional (2D) wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) measurement. For comparison, selected-area…
Simply planarizing nonfused perylene diimide based acceptors toward promising non-fullerene solar cells
Bian, Gao-Feng; Zhao, Feng; Lau, Tsz-Ki; Sheng, Chun-Qi; Lu, Xinhui; Du, Hui; Zhang, Cheng; Qu, Zhi-Rong; Chen, Hongzheng; Wan, Jun-Hua
This work focuses on developing high-efficiency perylene diimide (PDI)-based small molecular nonfullerene acceptors with a simple synthetic strategy. We reported a new electron acceptor, Py-e-PDI, obtained via cross-coupling four PDI units with a planar pyrene core through ethynyl groups. Although the ring-fusion synthetic procedure was omitted, the large planar core…
High-performance polyurethane nanocomposites based on UPy-modified cellulose nanocrystals
Tian, Donglin; Wang, Fenfen; Yang, Zhijun; Niu, Xiling; Wu, Qiang; Sun, Pingchuan
Densely H-bonding assemblies are the key strategy found by nature to enhance the rupture strength of natural polymers without sacrificing their toughness, such as spider silk, while it still remains a great challenge using such intriguing strategy to prepare high-performance synthesized polymer or biopolymer enhanced polymer nanocomposites. To address this…