Nanocellulose composites with enhanced interfacial compatibility and mechanical properties using a hybrid-toughened epoxy matrix

•Novel hybrid epoxy improved biofibre wettability and compatibility with the resin matrix.•Nanocellulose fibres (NCFs) enhanced mechanical performance of neat epoxy.•Incorporating bio-based epoxy into petro-epoxy increased toughness significantly. Although there is a growing interest in utilizing na...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCarbohydrate polymers Vol. 177; pp. 249 - 257
Main Authors Kuo, Pei-Yu, Barros, Luizmar de Assis, Yan, Ning, Sain, Mohini, Qing, Yan, Wu, Yiqiang
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2017
Subjects
Bio-epoxy
Bio-nanocomposite
Cellulose - chemistry
Elastic Modulus
Epoxy Resins - chemistry
Fibre/resin interface
Hybrid-toughened epoxy
Nanocellulose fibres
Nanocomposites - chemistry
Polymers
Tensile Strength
Bio-epoxy
Fibre/resin interface
Hybrid-toughened epoxy
Bio-nanocomposite
Nanocellulose fibres
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Summary:•Novel hybrid epoxy improved biofibre wettability and compatibility with the resin matrix.•Nanocellulose fibres (NCFs) enhanced mechanical performance of neat epoxy.•Incorporating bio-based epoxy into petro-epoxy increased toughness significantly. Although there is a growing interest in utilizing nanocellulose fibres (NCFs) based composites for achieving a higher sustainability, mechanical performance of these composites is limited due to the poor compatibility between fibre reinforcement and polymer matrices. Here we developed a bio-nanocomposite with an enhanced fibre/resin interface using a hybrid-toughened epoxy. A strong reinforcing effect of NCFs was achieved, demonstrating an increase up to 88% in tensile strength and 298% in tensile modulus as compared to neat petro-based P-epoxy. The toughness of neat P-epoxy was improved by 84% with the addition of 10wt% bio-based E-epoxy monomers, which also mitigated the amount of usage of bisphenol A (BPA). The morphological analyses showed that the hybrid epoxy improved the resin penetration and fibre distribution significantly in the resulting composites. Thus, our findings demonstrated the promise of developing sustainable and high performance epoxy composites combing NCFs with a hybrid petro-based and bio-based epoxy resin system.
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ISSN:0144-8617
1879-1344
DOI:10.1016/j.carbpol.2017.08.091