Why Does Wood Not Get Contact Charged? Lignin as an Antistatic Additive for Common Polymers

Abstract

Contact electrification (CE), or the development of surface charges upon contact and separation, is a millennia-old scientific mystery and the source of many problems in the industry. Since the 18th century, efforts to understand CE have involved ranking materials according to their charging propensities. In all these reports, wood, an insulator, turns out to be surprisingly immune to CE. Here, we show that this unique antistatic nature of wood is attributable to its lignin content, i.e., lignin removal from wood ceases the antistatic property, and (re)addition brings it back. The antistatic action of lignin (also an insulator) is proposed to be related to its radical scavenging action and can be explained through the bond-breaking mechanism of CE. Our results also show that lignin, a sustainable, low-cost biopolymer, can be used as an antistatic additive in some representative examples of elastomers and thermoplastics, displaying the universal nature of its antistatic action.

Formation and characterization of mechanochemically generated free lignin radicals from olive seeds

“…The diffractograms exhibited a wide band, with more well-defined peaks in the region of 10 ≤2Ɵ≤30. The maximum diffraction angle was determined to be around 20°, in well agreement with literature [27].In order to increase the solubility of the lignin and enable further characterization (such as GPC and 1 H-NMR), derivatization is typically accomplished by acylation with slight modification from literature[23,28]. Cryomilled olive seed lignin was acylated in the presence of trimethylacetylchloride and acylated lignin was recovered as solid powder (Scheme 1, see experimental section for details).…”

“…Cryomilling, an advantageous mechanochemical technique is used to increase the number of phenolic ends, thus the number of radicals which are already present in olive seed lignin. By applying mechanochemical external force, intramolecular covalent bonds of lignin are broken and reactive ends by homolytic cleavage are formed [23].…”

Balancing charge dissipation and generation: mechanisms and strategies for achieving steady-state charge of contact electrification at interfaces of matter

“…It was recently discovered by Baytekin and co-workers that the antistatic property of wood was attributed to the radical-scavenging ability of lignin. 115 Wood samples with different lignin content were charged by contact electrification using an aluminum (Al) surface. Results…”

“…It was recently discovered by Baytekin and co-workers that the antistatic properties of wood were attributed to the radical-scavenging ability of lignin. 115 Wood samples with different lignin contents were charged by contact electrication using an aluminum (Al) surface. Results showed that the charge of the wood sample with lignin completely removed was 10 times higher than the charge of the natural wood sample (i.e., with 32% lignin).…”

All in One, Self‐Powered Bionic Artificial Nerve Based on a Triboelectric Nanogenerator

“…It is found and proven that the output performance of TENG is influenced by the thickness of its dielectric material. [58][59][60][61] However, the presence of factors such as force and interlayer distance reduce its reliability and there are few works that explore the application of this property.…”