Keishin Handa

Optically transparent bionanofiber composites with low sensitivity to refractive index of the polymer matrix

Transparent polymers were reinforced by bacterial cellulose (BC) nanofibers, which are 10×50nm ribbon-shaped fibers. They exhibited high luminous transmittance at a fiber content as high as 60 wt %, and low sensitivity to a variety of refractive indices of matrix resins. Due to the nanofiber size effect, high transparency was obtained against a wider distribution of refractive index of resins from 1.492 to 1.636 at 20 °C. The optical transparency was also surprisingly insensitive to temperature increases up to 80 °C. As such, BC nanofibers appear to be viable candidates for optically transparent reinforcement.

Fiber-content dependency of the optical transparency and thermal expansion of bacterial nanofiber reinforced composites

We produced transparent nanocomposite reinforced with bacterial cellulose having a wide range of fiber contents, from 7.4to66.1wt%, by the combination of heat drying and organic solvent exchange methods. The addition of only 7.4wt% of bacterial cellulose nanofibers, which deteriorated light transmittance by only 2.4%, was able to reduce the coefficient of thermal expansion of acrylic resin from 86×10−6to38×10−6K−1. As such, the nanofiber network of bacterial cellulose has an extraordinary potential as a reinforcement to obtain optically transparent and low thermal expansion materials.

Property enhancement of optically transparent bionanofiber composites by acetylation

The authors studied acetylation of bacterial cellulose (BC) nanofibers to widen the applications of BC nanocomposites in optoelectronic devices. The slight acetylation of BC nanofibers significantly reduces the hygroscopicity of BC nanocomposites, while maintaining their high optical transparency and thermal stability. Furthermore, the degradation in optical transparency at elevated temperature (200°C) was significantly reduced by acetylation treatment. Therefore, the acetylation of bionanofibers has an extraordinary potential as treatment for property enhancement of bionanofiber composites.