The Influence of the CNC Contents to the Tensile Properties of Poly(Arylene Ether Sulfone)/Cellulose Nanocrystal Composite Fibers

Cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) is naturally abundant eco-friendly material, and currently much research have been conducted on it due to their high crystallinity and mechanical properties. It is the only crystalline part after removing the amorphous part, and it is suitable for use as reinforcing fillers for nanocomposite materials due to its defect-free crystalline part. Poly (Arylene Ether Sulfone) (PAES) is an amorphous super engineering plastic belonging to the PAE family. It has high mechanical properties, high resistance to oxidation and hydrolysis and high glass transition temperature due to the rigid backbone of PAES. The objective of this study is to observe how CNC affects PAES according to the CNC contents.<br/>In current study, PAES/CNC (CNC concentration: 0-15 wt%) nanocomposite fibers were fabricated by dry-jet wet spinning, followed by post-drawing process. Through the tensile analysis, it was confirmed that CNC acts as a reinforcing material inside the nanocomposite fibers resulting in increasing mechanical properties. But if the CNC content is too much, it can negatively affect strength acting as a factor that inhibits alignment of amorphous polymer chains.<br/>For the crystallinity analysis of PAES composite fiber, it shows that polymer orientation decreases rapidly, suggesting that the CNCs negatively affect the PAES chain orientation. Even if the CNC has highly ordered crystalline structure, the reinforcing effect of CNC on PAES/CNC composite fibers is negligible. However, when the draw ratio of the CNC is increased, an increase in the arrangement of the CNC is observed. That is, consequently, it can be seen that the effect of the increase in modulus of composite fiber is due to the alignment of the CNC.