Wood, the most widespread natural composite, gains its mechanical properties from the precise organization of nano and micro-reinforcing units (cellulose fibers) embedded in a soft matrix (lignin, hemicellulose). Synthetic nano-reinforced materials are known to be hard to prepare due to phase separation. The Layer-by-Layer (LbL) assembly has been used to solve this problem but there are still very few LBL films showing in-plane alignement of 1D-nano-objects. We used spin-assisted LbL assembly to prepare micrometric films composed of microfibrilated cellulose and Polyvinylamine. The shear forces produced during spinning induce a radial orientation of the fibers on the surface. We studied the influence of the spinning parameters on the degree of alignment of the fibers on monolayers and produced transparent multilaylers with Young's modulus reaching 35 GPa and maximal strength above 500 MPa.(A) Effect of orientation on the stress-strain curves of microfibrilated celullose based films. (B) AFM image showing orientation of the fibers (Size 3*3 �m, vertical scale 10nm). Left, original image. Right, visual representation obtained after quantitative analysis of the orientation using OrientationJ a plug-in for ImageJ (each color correspond to a particular direction).

Cellulose microfibril orientation in ultrastrong Layer-by-Layer assembled nano-composites

248th National Meeting (2014)

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