Novel Layer-by-Layer Procedure for Making Nylon-6 Nanofiber Reinforced High Strength, Tough, and Transparent Thermoplastic Polyurethane Composites

Abstract

We highlight a novel composite fabrication method based on solution casting, electrospinning, and film stacking for preparing highly transparent nylon-6 nanofiber reinforced thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) composite films. The procedure is simple and can be extended to the other thermoplastics. The morphology of fiber/matrix interface and the properties of composite films were also investigated. The method led to a significant reinforcement in mechanical properties of TPU like tensile strength, E modulus, strain, and toughness just using very small amounts of nylon fibers (about 0.4-1.7 wt %; 150-300 nm diameter). The enhanced mechanical properties were achieved without sacrificing optical properties like transparency of TPU.

Electrospun nanofiber reinforced all-organic PVDF/PI tough composites and their dielectric permittivity

“…When the amount of co-PI nanofibers was 10 and 20 wt%, the PI/PVDF composites (S-1 and S-2) exhibited toughness in the same level as the pure co-PI nanofiber belts. Further increasing the content of co-PI nanofibers (S-3, S-4 and S-5) in the composites led to an increase of toughness in the range of 20-30 J/g, which is even higher than that of PVA film (2.5 J/g), CNTs reinforced PVA electrospun nonwovens (16 J/g) and electrospun nylon-6 nanofibers (21.8 J/g) [22,23]. The dependence of dielectric permittivity and dielectric loss of the PVDF/PI composites on the mass fraction of aligned co-PI nanofibers was illustrated in Fig.…”

Highly strong and highly tough electrospun polyimide/polyimide composite nanofibers from binary blend of polyamic acids

“…31 The nylon-6/TPU composite exhibited a considerably higher toughness in the range of 152-274 J g À1 than pure TPU (111 J g À1 ) and nylon-6 nanober mat (21.8 J g À1 ). [29][30][31] In this study, the toughness of the blend-PI nanober membranes could be tuned by changing the molar ratio of the rigid and exible moieties. The homo B-PI exhibited a toughness of 3.34 J g À1 , whereas O-PI achieved a toughness of 57.62 J g À1 , which was 60% higher than that of PI/MWCNTs composites (0.5-5 vol% MWCNTs, 36 J g À1 ).…”

Enhanced mechanical properties of polyethylene composites with low content of electrospun nylon-66 nanofibers

“…On the other hand, electrospun nanofibers are generally long and continuous; thus they present less nanofiber ends. Reasonably, stress concentration is hard to occur in the composites filled with electrospun nanofibers [4]. Therefore, electrospun nanofiber is regarded as a promising candidate for composite reinforcement.…”

“…[8]. In short, the matrices reinforced by electrospun nanofibers are mainly thermosetting polymers or amorphous counterparts [4,9]. However few studies deal with the reinforcement of thermoplastic matrices filled with electrospun nanofibers, and even the widely used polyolefins.…”