Imperial College London
Alternate

Professor Koon-Yang Lee

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Aeronautics

Professor in Polymer Engineering
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 5150koonyang.lee

 
 
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Location

 

325City and Guilds BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Santmarti:2019:10.1021/acsomega.9b00388,
author = {Santmarti, A and Teh, JW and Lee, K-Y},
doi = {10.1021/acsomega.9b00388},
journal = {ACS Omega},
pages = {9896--9903},
title = {Transparent poly(methyl methacrylate) composites based on bacterial cellulose nanofibre networks with improved fracture resistance and impact strength},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.9b00388},
volume = {4},
year = {2019}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Cellulose nanofibers are often explored as biobased reinforcement for the production of high-performance composite materials. In this work, we fabricated transparent poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) composites consisting of two-dimensional and three-dimensional bacterial cellulose (BC) nanofiber networks. Three different composite designs consisting of 1 vol % BC loading were fabricated and studied: (i) composites with a three-dimensional BC nanofiber network embedded uniformly throughout the PMMA matrix; (ii) sandwich-structured construction consisting of three-dimensional BC–PMMA sandwiched between two neat PMMA sheets; and (iii) dried and well-consolidated two-dimensional BC nanofiber network embedded in a PMMA matrix. All fabricated model BC–PMMA composites were found to be optically transparent, but PMMA composites consisting of the two-dimensional BC nanofiber network possessed higher light transmittance (73% @550 nm) compared to the three-dimensional BC nanofiber network counterparts (63% @550 nm). This is due to the higher specific surface area of the three-dimensional BC nanofiber network, which led to more light scattering. Nevertheless, it was found that both two-dimensional and three-dimensional BC nanofiber networks serve as excellent stiffening agents for PMMA matrix, improving the tensile modulus of the resulting composites by up to 30%. However, no improvement in tensile strength was observed. The use of three-dimensional BC nanofiber network led to matrix embrittlement, reducing the tensile strain-at-failure, fracture resistance, and Charpy impact strength of the resulting BC–PMMA composites. When the BC nanofiber network was used as two-dimensional reinforcement, cracks were observed to propagate through the debonding of BC nanofiber network, leading to higher fracture toughness and Charpy impact strength. These novel findings could open up further opportunities in the design of novel optically transparent polymeric composite lami
AU  - Santmarti,A
AU  - Teh,JW
AU  - Lee,K-Y
DO  - 10.1021/acsomega.9b00388
EP  - 9903
PY  - 2019///
SN  - 2470-1343
SP  - 9896
TI  - Transparent poly(methyl methacrylate) composites based on bacterial cellulose nanofibre networks with improved fracture resistance and impact strength
T2  - ACS Omega
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.9b00388
UR  - https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsomega.9b00388
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/70509
VL  - 4
ER  -
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