Multiscale bio-inspired honeycomb structure material with high mechanical strength and low density

Abstract

We report a kind of polymer ordered porous honeycomb structure film with enhanced mechanical strength and low density. The film is fabricated with polyimide as a basic structure and nano-clay as the enhanced layer in the honeycomb walls, which mimics the multi-scale structure of natural honeycombs. After examining the mechanical properties of the bio-inspired honeycomb structures with different contents of clay, we find that the hardness of the honeycomb films increases with increasing clay content, and reaches a maximum value of 0.037GPa on average, which is about 5 times that for the honeycomb film without clay. Because of the existence of the porous structure, the bulk density of the multiscale bio-inspired honeycomb structure films fabricated with the solution containing 0.9 wt% clay content is 35.7% of the honeycomb structure films fabricated with the solution without clay, and the apparent density of the honeycomb structure films fabricated with the solution containing 0.9 wt% clay content is 67.5% of the honeycomb structure films fabricated with the solution without clay, and the porosity increases by 45.6%. In addition, the study of the thermal properties indicates that the porous structure does not decrease the thermal stability of the original materials. Meanwhile, the introduction of the clay into the film can increase the thermal stability of the materials slightly. So this kind of multiscale bio-inspired honeycomb structure, with high mechanical strength, low density and excellent thermal stability, is considered to have wide applications in the areas of tissue engineering, aeronautical materials, separation films in lithium-ion batteries, and so on.

UV-assisted three-dimensional printing of polymer nanocomposites based on inorganic fillers

“…Taking inspiration from the natural world [23], cellular specimens with different unit cell geometry (infill pattern) and increasing infill density were realized by UV-3D printing, as shown in Fig. 4a-f where zoomed optical stereoscopic images of the UV-3D printed samples clearly highlight the excellent resolution and printing accuracy achievable with the UV-3D printing setup assembled in this work.…”

Breath Figure: A Nature-Inspired Preparation Method for Ordered Porous Films

“…150,432 The Pickering effect in the BF process leads to the formation of hierarchically structured NP arrays. Thus far, a great number of nanomaterials, such as NPs of Au, 433 CdSe, 150 Fe 2 O 3 , 434,435 and SiO 2 , 44,149 CNTs, 436 hydrophilic nanoclays, 288 surfactant-encapsulated POMs, 146 and amino modified zeolite L crystals, 152 have been reported to be able to form hybrid BFAs.…”

Fabrication of Durable Honeycomb‐Patterned Films of Poly(ether sulfone)s via Breath Figures

“…With regard to the stability, it is worth noting that the majority of studies focus mainly on thermal stability, [50][51][52][53] mechanical strength, [ 53 ] and resistance to organic solvents. [ 51 ] Few researches investigated the resistance to acid and base solutions, and the treatment in the existing literature was proceeded at room temperature.…”