Developing optically efficient nanofiber coatings inspired by Cyphochilus white beetle

Abstract

Achieving whiteness and opaqueness has been an issue in paint, ceramic, paper, and coating industries from the very beginning. In the past two decades, biomimetics, for the construction of bio-inspired functional materials, has attracted much attention. As an application of biomimetic science, various structural colored materials are investigated by many researchers. The white beetle exoskeletal scales is one of those materials that shows a brilliant white color caused by randomly arranged chitin nanofibers. This material is the inspiration for achieving light weight, efficient, and low-cost white coatings by means of a nanostructure. We used this idea in this research to apply nanofibrous polymeric layer on a substrate, paper sheet in here, and witnessed the possible achievements by varying the nanofiber layer characteristics that underpin its optical properties. We coated nylon and PAN nanofiber layers on the surface of a paper using an electrospinning method and for both polymers desirably high whiteness and opaqueness achieved. Moreover, it was observed that end-use application in printing and writing is easily attained on the nanofiber-coated paper using the common methods. Measuring the properties of the nylon nanofiber-coated paper showed that the tensile strength and hydrophilicity slightly increased depending on the nanofiber layer characteristics.