Issue 65, 2015

Thermally flexible epoxy/cellulose blends mediated by an ionic liquid

Abstract

Blends between the widely used thermoset resin, epoxy, and the most abundant organic material, natural cellulose are demonstrated for the first time. The blending modification induced by charge transfer complexes using a room temperature ionic liquid, leads to the formation of thermally flexible thermoset materials. The blend materials containing low concentrations of cellulose were optically transparent which indicates the miscibility at these compositions. We observed the existence of intermolecular hydrogen bonding between epoxy and cellulose in the presence of the ionic liquid, leading to partial miscibility between these two polymers. The addition of cellulose improves the tensile mechanical properties of epoxy. This study reveals the use of ionic liquids as a compatible processing medium to prepare epoxy thermosets modified with natural polymers.

Graphical abstract: Thermally flexible epoxy/cellulose blends mediated by an ionic liquid

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
02 Apr 2015
Accepted
08 Jun 2015
First published
08 Jun 2015
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

RSC Adv., 2015,5, 52832-52836

Author version available

Thermally flexible epoxy/cellulose blends mediated by an ionic liquid

N. Hameed, J. Bavishi, J. Parameswaranpillai, N. V. Salim, J. Joseph, G. Madras and B. L. Fox, RSC Adv., 2015, 5, 52832 DOI: 10.1039/C5RA05900C

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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