Functional materials based on renewable building blocks are highly demanded for material applications. In this perspective, wood is increasingly considered in sustainable structural materials development due to its inherent hierarchical structure and an oriented reinforcing cellulose phase. In this study, structure-retaining controlled delignification of wood was performed to provide direct access to the hierarchical cellulose scaffold. Next, obtained bio-based scaffold of an increased porosity was infiltrated with an ionic liquid and heat activated to partially dissolve the fiber surface. Optimized fabrication process revealed possibility to avoid wood drying, thus lowering the manufacturing costs. Afterwards water-washed to remove IL samples exhibited pronounced isotropic flexibility, which upon combined compression and lateral shear allowed fabrication of desired 3D shapes with tunable fiber architecture. The obtained cellulosic materials were also structurally, chemically and mechanically characterized revealing superior tensile, optical and barrier properties compared to native wood. Furthermore, while retaining unidirectional fiber orientation, suggested approach allows almost 8-fold tensile strength improvement in the direction perpendicular to fiber orientation, which is otherwise very challenging to achieve. Main results and multifunctional applications of the developed fully biodegradable and totally additive-free materials will be discussed

Ionic liquid facilitated partial fiber surface dissolution of wood-derived hierarchical scaffolds towards mechanically robust and functional materials

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.