Abstract
We previously reported the preparation of a self-assembled chitin nanofiber (CNF) film via regeneration from an ion gel with an ionic liquid, followed by sonication and filtration. Based on the finding that CNFs were redispersed in a mixture of the film with ammonia aqueous solution (aq.), in this study, CNF-natural rubber (NR) composite sheets were fabricated by mixing redispersed CNF with NR latex stabilized by ammonia, followed by drying under reduced pressure. Tensile testing of the sheets indicated the reinforcing effect of CNFs. Further, CNF-NR composite porous materials were fabricated by evaporating ammonia from the CNF-NR dispersion, followed by lyophilization. The mechanism for the formation of porous structures was evaluated.
Highlights
Biopolymers are widely distributed and exhibit specific vital functions in nature [1,2]
We reported that an ionic liquid, 1-allyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide (AMIMBr), dissolves chitin in concentrations up to 4.8 weight percent and further forms ion gels with higher contents of chitin [11,12]
These results suggest that chitin nanofiber (CNF) were dispersed well in the Further, with are more clearly seen in Further, with the the increasing increasingweight weightratio ratioofofCNFs, CNFs,the thenanofiber nanofibermorphologies morphologies are more clearly seen the images of the composite sheets
Summary
Biopolymers are widely distributed and exhibit specific vital functions in nature [1,2]. Research concerning the conversion of chitin to various useful bio-based materials after proper dissolution in suitable solvents has attracted much attention in recent years [7]. Some ionic liquids such as imidazolium acetates with different substituents were found to dissolve chitin [8,9,10]. As nanofibrillation is one of the efficient approaches for the functionalization of chitin, CNFs prepared by various techniques have been employed to fabricate composite materials besides those in the above studies [7,13,14,18,19,20,21].
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