With the rapid development of portable and wearable electronic devices, self-supporting flexible supercapacitors have attracted much attention, and higher requirements have been put forward for the electrode of the device, that is, it is necessary to have good mechanical properties while satisfying excellent electrochemical performance. In this work, a facile method was invented to obtain excellent self-supported flexible electrode materials with high mechanical properties and outstanding electrochemical performance by combining cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) and reduced graphene oxide (RGO). We focused on the effect of the ratio of the addition of CNFs and the formation process of the film on the electrochemical and mechanical properties. The results show that the CNFs/RGO12 (where the ratio of CNFs to GO is 1:2) film displayed outstanding comprehensive properties; its tensile strength and conductivity were up to 83 MPa and 202.94 S/m, respectively, and its CA value was as high as 146 mF cm−2 under the current density of 5 mA cm−2. Furthermore, the initial retention rate of the specific capacitance was about 83.7% when recycled 2000 times; moreover, its capacitance did not change much after perpendicular bending 200 times. Therefore, the films prepared by this study have great potential in the field of flexible supercapacitors.

A novel kaolinite-poly(acrylic acid acrylamide) water superabsorbent with a water absorbency and salt solution absorbency of 433 and 108 g/g, respectively, was successfully synthesized by the photopolymerization of acrylic acid with acrylamide in the presence of kaolinite powder under 30 min of ultraviolet irradiation at room temperature. The results showed a synergetic effect of the mixed photoinitiators (Michler's ketone and benzophenone) on the water absorbency, and the incorporation of less than 10 wt % kaolinite into the water superabsorbent slightly improved the water absorbency and salt solution absorbency and obviously upgraded the water retention, as demonstrated by retention testing as well as thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy verified the structure of the kaolinite composite superabsorbent.

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Semiconducting wood/polyaniline (PANI) composites were synthesized via in situ polymerization of aniline monomer, which was impregnated into the wood veneer in advance. Thus, the resulting composites exhibited the characteristics of the conducting PANI and natural wood. The light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy images showed that PANI was uniformly dispersed into the wood substrate. The weight percent gain and volume bulk increase of the composites were 16.13% and 6.21%, respectively. The equilibrium water absorption studies showed that the composites were less hydrophilic, because of the addition of hydrophobic PANI. The electrical conductivity of the wood/PANI composite ranged from 2.57 × 10−5 to 9.23 × 10−3 S cm−1 and was tuned by changing the phosphoric acid concentration. The electromagnetic shielding effectiveness of the wood/PANI composites was mainly in the range 30–60 dB, which may be used for general industry or commercial electronics. Fourier transform infrared spectra revealed that PANI was closely polymerized onto the wood substrate and allowed the accessibility of the amine groups of the aniline to the hydroxyl groups of the wood. Furthermore, the X‐ray diffraction analysis indicated that the crystal lattice of the crystalline cellulose region was not damaged, and the relative crystallinity of wood increased. POLYM. COMPOS., 39:537–543, 2018. © 2016 Society of Plastics Engineers

A novel filling antioxidant (Lig‐g‐RT) to improve the mechanical properties and antiaging performance of styrene‐butadiene rubber (SBR) composites was prepared by grafting antioxidant intermediate p‐aminodiphenylamine (RT) on the surface of lignin via the linkage of silane coupling agent. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) measurements confirmed that RT was successfully grafted on the surface of lignin to produce the functionalized Lig‐g‐RT which shows a better thermal stability than lignin. Compared with SBR/lignin composite, the SBR/Lig‐g‐RT composite using latex co‐precipitation method exhibits a much better filler dispersion, which contributes to the maintain of the physical mechanical properties of SBR vulcanizates. Moreover, the SBR/Lig‐g‐RT vulcanizate exhibits less chemical crosslink concentration and higher entanglement density than SBR/lignin vulcanizate according to the Mooney–Rivlin model analysis. In addition, the stabilizing effect of lignin/Lig‐g‐RT on the carbon‐black filled SBR vulcanizates is comparable with that of commercial antioxidant N‐1,3‐dimethylbutyl‐N′‐phenyl‐p‐phenylenediamine (4020), especially the SBR vulcanizate filled with 10 phr Lig‐g‐RT obtains the optimum thermo‐oxidative aging properties. This functionalized Lig‐g‐RT not only provides an intramolecular synergistic antiaging effect for SBR vulcanizates and an improvement of filler dispersion, but greatly extends the comprehensive utilization of industrial lignin.