Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Engineering
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 …