Engineering Commons^™

Fabrication And Characterization Of Cellulose Nanocrystal Enhanced Sustainable Polymer Nanocomposites Through Surface Chemistry And Processing, Shane X. Peng

Open Access Dissertations

Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) belong to a class of cellulose based nanomaterials that are extracted from renewable and sustainable sources and have excellent mechanical and thermal properties. While applications for CNCs have been expanding, one of the challenges of utilizing CNCs is to overcome their low dispersibility in hydrophobic polymers. In the present work, several approaches are utilized to improve the interfacial compatibility and overall performance of CNC/epoxy and CNC/polyamide nanocomposite.

For a two-part epoxy system, a novel approach was taken to disperse CNC in epoxy matrix by pre-formulating CNC into the hardeners. Three types of hardeners were evaluated for their …

Multiscale Modeling Of The Hierarchical Structure Of Cellulose Nanocrystals, Fernando Luis Dri

Open Access Dissertations

Cellulose constitutes the most abundant renewable polymeric resource available today. It considered an almost inexhaustible source of raw material, and holds great promise in meeting increasing demands for environmentally friendly and biocompatible products. Key future applications are currently under development for the automotive, aerospace and textile industries. When cellulose fibers are subjected to acid hydrolysis, the fibers yield rod-like, highly crystalline residues called cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs). These particles show remarkable mechanical and chemical properties (e.g. Young Modulus ~200 GPa) within the range of other synthetically-developed reinforcement materials. Critical to the design of these materials are fundamental material properties, many of …