Abstract
The aim of this study is to clarify light scattering mechanism of hazy transparent cellulose nanopaper. Clear optical transparent nanopaper consists of 3–15 nm wide cellulose nanofibers, which are obtained by the full nanofibrillation of pulp fibers. At the clear transparent nanopaper with 40 μm thickness, their total transmittance are 89.3–91.5% and haze values are 4.9–11.7%. When the pulp fibers are subjected to weak nanofibrillation, hazy transparent nanopapers are obtained. The hazy transparent nanopaper consists of cellulose nanofibers and some microsized cellulose fibers. At the hazy transparent nanopaper with 40 μm thickness, their total transmittance were constant at 88.6–92.1% but their haze value were 27.3–86.7%. Cellulose nanofibers are solid cylinders, whereas the pulp fibers are hollow cylinders. The hollow shape is retained in the microsized cellulose fibers, but they are compressed flat inside the nanopaper. This compressed cavity causes light scattering by the refractive index difference between air and cellulose. As a result, the nanopaper shows a hazy transparent appearance and exhibits a high thermal durability (295–305 °C), and low thermal expansion (8.5–10.6 ppm/K) because of their high density (1.29–1.55 g/cm3) and crystallinity (73–80%).
Highlights
The aim of this study is to clarify light scattering mechanism of hazy transparent cellulose nanopaper
The samples were fabricated with the same width of cellulose nanofibers, the density of cellulose nanopaper changed their appearance from clear transparent to hazy transparent, which has been reported in previous studies[9,22,23]
The low-density nanopapers show low mechanical properties because these characteristics are related to highly dense cellulose nanofibers
Summary
The aim of this study is to clarify light scattering mechanism of hazy transparent cellulose nanopaper. When 3–15-nm-wide cellulose nanofibers are densely packed, the nanopaper does not scatter light inside the sheet, and their appearance becomes clear transparent[4,5]. Due to their low haze and high thermal properties, clear transparent nanopapers have been developed for optoelectronic device substrates such as transparent electrodes or transistor substrates[6,7,8,9,10]. Nanopaper produced from mechanically nanofibrillated cellulose nanofibers are the most promising because of their higher thermal resistance[8] This nanopaper shows various appearance as clear transparent, hazy transparent, and opaque. Using mechanically nanofibrillated nanopaper, their light scattering is presented, and a fabrication method and application of hazy transparent nanopaper is developed
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