Compressible and superelastic 3D printed monolith has shown great promise in various applications including energy storage, soft electronics, and sensors. Although such elastic monolith has been constructed using some limited materials, most notably graphene, it has not yet been achieved in nature’s most abundant material, cellulose, partly due to the strong hydrogen bonding network within cellulose. Here we report a 3D printed cellulose nanofibrils monolith that demonstrates superb elasticity (over 91% strain recovery after 500 cycles of compressive test), compressibility (up to 90% compressive strain), and pressure sensitivity (0.337 kPa<sup>-1</sup>) at 43% relative humidity. Such high-performance CNF monolith is achieved through both hierarchical architecture design by 3D printing and freeze-drying, and incorporation of hygroscopic salt for water absorption. The facile and efficient designing strategy for highly flexible CNF monolith is expected to expand to materials beyond cellulose and can realize much broader applications in flexible sensor, thermal insulation and many other fields.

Superelastic, hygroscopic, and ionic conducting cellulose nanofibrils monolith by 3D printing

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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