Issue 1, 2010
From the journal:

Journal of Materials Chemistry

Bio-inspired mechanically-adaptive nanocomposites derived from cotton cellulose whiskers†

Kadhiravan Shanmuganathan,a   Jeffrey R. Capadona,bc   Stuart J. Rowan*abd  and  Christoph Weder*ae  

* Corresponding authors

a Department of Macromolecular Science & Engineering, Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), 2100 Adelbert Road, Cleveland, Ohio 44106-7202, USA
E-mail: stuart.rowan@case.edu

b Department of Biomedical Engineering, CWRU, Cleveland, OH, USA

c Rehabilitation Research and Development, Louis Stokes Cleveland DVA Medical Center, Cleveland, OH, USA

d Department of Chemistry, CWRU, Cleveland, OH, USA

e Adolphe Merkle Institute and Fribourg Center for Nanomaterials, University of Fribourg, CH-1700 Fribourg, Switzerland
E-mail: christoph.weder@unifr.ch

Abstract

A new series of biomimetic, stimuli-responsive nanocomposites, which change their mechanical properties upon exposure to physiological conditions, was investigated. The materials were produced by introducing percolating networks of cellulose whiskers isolated from cotton into poly(vinyl acetate). Below the glass-transition temperature (Tg ∼ 63 °C), the tensile storage moduli (E′) of the dry nanocomposites increased two fold, from 2 GPa for the neat polymer to 4 GPa for a nanocomposite with 16.5% v/v whiskers. The relative reinforcement was more significant above Tg, where E′ was increased nearly 40 fold, from ∼1.2 MPa to ∼45 MPa. Upon exposure to emulated physiological conditions (immersion in artificial cerebrospinal fluid at 37 °C) all nanocomposites showed a pronounced decrease in E′, for example to 5 MPa for the 16.5% v/v whisker nanocomposites with only about 28% w/w swelling. This is a significant reduction in the amount of swelling required to decrease the E′, compared to earlier material versions based on cellulose whiskers with higher surface charge density; the decreased swelling may be a considerable advantage for the intended use of these materials as adaptive substrates for intracortical electrodes and other biomedical applications.

Graphical abstract: Bio-inspired mechanically-adaptive nanocomposites derived from cotton cellulose whiskers

About
Cited by
Related
Download options Please wait...

Supplementary files

Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/B916130A
Article type
Paper
Submitted
05 Aug 2009
Accepted
06 Oct 2009
First published
05 Nov 2009

J. Mater. Chem., 2010,20, 180-186

Permissions

Request permissions

Bio-inspired mechanically-adaptive nanocomposites derived from cotton cellulose whiskers

K. Shanmuganathan, J. R. Capadona, S. J. Rowan and C. Weder, J. Mater. Chem., 2010, 20, 180 DOI: 10.1039/B916130A

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Spotlight

Advertisements