Many natural materials are noted to be lightweight, tough and resilient. Nano- and micro-scale fibers are a common structural motif found in many of these systems that give rise to interesting properties.  Electrospun fibers have great potential to become innovative fibrous material products that mimic aspects of natural materials. Lignin-based nanofiber mats composed of 99 wt.% softwood kraft lignin were transformed into three dimensional (3D) fibrous aerogels with a novel method without using toxic reagents. In addition, the effects of incorporating nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) on the properties of aerogels were investigated. The resulting ultralight aerogels were composed of a network of short nanofibers and showed outstanding shape recovery properties. Further, we report the compressive elasticity of the lignin aerogels as a function of fiber diameter, NCC loading, and thermal heat treatment. This work portrays a novel method to form lignin-based materials fabricated through electrospinning by exploiting the inherent thermal stability of lignin.

Ultralight nanofibrous lignin aerogels with outstanding shape-recovery properties

255th National Meeting (2018)

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