Sustainable optically transparent composites based on epoxidized soy-bean oil (ESO) matrix and high contents of bacterial cellulose (BC)

Abstract

Production of transparent composites from totally renewable resources with extraordinary potential for different applications can be made possible using cellulose. Composites of epoxidized soybean oil (ESO)/ bacterial cellulose (BC) nanofibers have been prepared with high fiber content. Due to the nano-order scale network-like structure of BC nanofibers, composite films present high transparency even at high BC content. Transparency of films has been analyzed by UV-visible spectroscopy observing that only 15% of matrix transmittance is lost in the nanocomposites. ESO/BC composites show better mechanical properties with increasing BC content. Composites combine high stiffness and good ductility due to the incorporation of BC network structure in ESO matrix.

Characterization of green composites from biobased epoxy matrices and bio-fillers derived from seashell wastes

“…Epoxidation of different vegetable oils leads to epoxidized vegetable oils (EVOs) with attraction properties from both economic and technical points of view. Different epoxidized vegetable oils (mainly epoxidized linseed oil-ELO and epoxidized soybean oil-ESBO due to their low cost) have been successfully used as thermosetting epoxy resins as coatings and polymer matrices with a wide variety of reinforcements [6][7][8][9][10]. Also, different products derived from the cashew nut shell liquid (CNSL) industry are attracting as biobased phenolic resins [11,12] and some advances in biobased unsaturated polyester resins have been done by using biobased polyols and other components [13,14] The main aim of this work was to develop a green composite from a commercial epoxy resin with more than 50% of percentage of biomass carbon content and bio-fillers derived from seashell of different bivalve mollusks collected from the seashore.…”

Nanostructured composite materials reinforced with nature-based cellulose nanofibres

“…Both constituents of the composite are obtained from renewable resources: ESO is manufactured by epoxidation of the double bonds of the SBO triglycerides with hydrogen peroxide and it is industrially available in large amounts at a reasonable cost, and BC nanofibres have been produced as explained on the above section. In addition, bacterial cellulose nanoreinforcement has been acetylated for enhancing both nanofibre dispersion and adhesion between constituents [11]. Preparation of ESO/BC composite films with high BC content (up to 75 wt %) has been done by immersion manufacturing method, starting from BC film mats.…”

“…UV-visible transparency of composite films was characterized in a spectrometer Jasco UV-630. Tensile tests were carried out in a Minimat miniature mechanical tester machine with a 200 N load cell, considering a crosshead rate of 1 mm/min, and a distance between grips of 22 mm, following ASTM D 1708 standard [11].…”

“…(a) (b) (c) Figure 6: Transparency of studied films [11]. (a) neat ESO matrix, (b) BC reinforcing mat, (c) ESO/BC composite.…”

Novel cellulose-based composites based on nanofibrillated plant and bacterial cellulose: recent advances at the University of Aveiro – a review

“…BC has a high degree of poly merization and crystallinity, extremely high water holding capacity, high tensile strength, and high surface area (George et al 2005a,b ). BC is well suited as a reinforcing element in nanocomposites in several polymeric matrices, namely, cellulose acetate butyrate (Gindl and Keckes 2004 ), acrylic thermosetting resins Ifuku et al 2007 ), phenolic resins , poly(ethylene oxide) (Brown and Laborie 2008 ), plasticized starch (Wan et al 2009 ), PLA (Kim et al 2009 ), and epoxidized soybean oil matrix (Retegi et al 2012 ), just to mention a few examples.…”