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Nano Research 2023, 16(5): 7609-7617 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5383-x
Research Article | Issue | Published: 04 February 2023

3D-printed mechanically strong and extreme environment adaptable boron nitride/cellulose nanofluidic macrofibers

Show Author's Information Le Yu1,§,  Tingting Gao2,§,  Ruiyu Mi3,§,  Jing Huang1,  Weiqing Kong4,  Dapeng Liu5,  Zhiqiang Liang6,  Dongdong Ye7,  Chaoji Chen1( )
School of Resource and Environmental Sciences, Hubei Biomass-Resource Chemistry and Environmental Biotechnology Key Laboratory, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China
Key Laboratory of Textile Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China
Beijing Key Laboratory of Materials Utilization of Nonmetallic Minerals and Solid Wastes, National Laboratory of Mineral Materials, School of Materials Science and Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China
State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China
Interdisciplinary Materials Research Center, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China
Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Carbon-Based Functional Materials and Devices, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China
School of Textile Materials and Engineering, Wuyi University, Jiangmen 529020, China

§ Le Yu, Tingting Gao, and Ruiyu Mi contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
boron nitride, three-dimensional (3D) printing, cellulose, nanofluidic, macrofiber
Topics:
Nanoelectronics
Cite this article:
Yu L, Gao T, Mi R, et al. 3D-printed mechanically strong and extreme environment adaptable boron nitride/cellulose nanofluidic macrofibers. Nano Research, 2023, 16(5): 7609-7617. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5383-x
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Fibrous nanofluidic materials are ideal building blocks for implantable electrode, biomimetic actuator, and wearable electronics due to their favorable features of intrinsic flexibility and unidirectional ion transport. However, the large-scale preparation of fibrous nanofluidic materials with desirable mechanical strength and good environment adaptability for practical use remains challenging. Herein, by fully taking advantage of the attractive mechanical, structural, and chemical features of boron nitride (BN) nanosheet and nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC), a scalable and cost-effective three-dimensional (3D) printed macrofiber featuring abundant vertically aligned nanofluidic channels is demonstrated to exhibit a good combination of high tensile strength of 100 MPa, thermal stability of up to 230 °C, and ionic conductivity of 1.8 × 10−4 S/cm at low salt concentrations (< 10−3 M). In addition, the versatile surface chemistry of cellulose allows us to stabilize the macrofiber at the molecular level via a facile post-cross-linking method, which eventually enables the stable operation of the modified macrofiber in various extreme environments such as strong acidic, strong alkaline, and high temperature. We believe this work implies a promising guideline for designing and manufacturing fibrous nanodevices towards extreme environment operations.


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Abstract
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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

3D-printed mechanically strong and extreme environment adaptable boron nitride/cellulose nanofluidic macrofibers

Show Author's information Le Yu1,§, Tingting Gao2,§, Ruiyu Mi3,§, Jing Huang1, Weiqing Kong4, Dapeng Liu5, Zhiqiang Liang6, Dongdong Ye7, Chaoji Chen1( )
School of Resource and Environmental Sciences, Hubei Biomass-Resource Chemistry and Environmental Biotechnology Key Laboratory, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China
Key Laboratory of Textile Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China
Beijing Key Laboratory of Materials Utilization of Nonmetallic Minerals and Solid Wastes, National Laboratory of Mineral Materials, School of Materials Science and Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China
State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China
Interdisciplinary Materials Research Center, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China
Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Carbon-Based Functional Materials and Devices, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China
School of Textile Materials and Engineering, Wuyi University, Jiangmen 529020, China

§ Le Yu, Tingting Gao, and Ruiyu Mi contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Fibrous nanofluidic materials are ideal building blocks for implantable electrode, biomimetic actuator, and wearable electronics due to their favorable features of intrinsic flexibility and unidirectional ion transport. However, the large-scale preparation of fibrous nanofluidic materials with desirable mechanical strength and good environment adaptability for practical use remains challenging. Herein, by fully taking advantage of the attractive mechanical, structural, and chemical features of boron nitride (BN) nanosheet and nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC), a scalable and cost-effective three-dimensional (3D) printed macrofiber featuring abundant vertically aligned nanofluidic channels is demonstrated to exhibit a good combination of high tensile strength of 100 MPa, thermal stability of up to 230 °C, and ionic conductivity of 1.8 × 10−4 S/cm at low salt concentrations (< 10−3 M). In addition, the versatile surface chemistry of cellulose allows us to stabilize the macrofiber at the molecular level via a facile post-cross-linking method, which eventually enables the stable operation of the modified macrofiber in various extreme environments such as strong acidic, strong alkaline, and high temperature. We believe this work implies a promising guideline for designing and manufacturing fibrous nanodevices towards extreme environment operations.

Keywords: boron nitride, three-dimensional (3D) printing, cellulose, nanofluidic, macrofiber

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Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 22 September 2022
Revised: 17 November 2022
Accepted: 04 December 2022
Published: 04 February 2023
Issue date: May 2023

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press 2023

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

We thank the Test Center and Core Facility of Wuhan University for assistance with material characterizations. The authors acknowledge Q. Xia for the helpful suggestions on the graphical illustration of the cross-linking process and H. Liu for TG-FTIR measurements.

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