Biodegradable Dual‐Network Cellulosic Composite Bioplastic Metafilm for Plastic Substitute
Dong Wang, Shuo Shi, Yanyun Mao, Leqi Lei, Shaohai Fu, Jinlian Hu
Abstract
Abstract With the escalating environmental and health concerns over petroleum‐based plastics, sustainable and biodegradable cellulosic materials are a promising alternative to plastics, yet remain unsatisfied properties such as fragility, inflammability and water sensitivity for practical usage. Herein, we present a novel dual‐network design strategy to address these limitations and fabricate a high‐performance cellulosic composite bioplastic metafilm with the exceptional mechanical toughness (23.5 MJ m −3 ), flame retardance, and solvent resistance by in situ growth of cyclotriphosphazene‐bridged organosilica network within bacterial cellulose matrix. The phosphorus, nitrogen‐containing organosilica network, verified by the experimental and theoretical results, plays a triple action on significantly enhancing tensile strength, toughness, flame retardance and water resistance of composite bioplastic metafilm. Furthermore, cellulosic bioplastic composite metafilm demonstrates a higher maximum usage temperature (245 °C), lower thermal expansion coefficient (15.19 ppm °C −1 ), and better solvent resistance than traditional plastics, good biocompatibility and natural biodegradation. Moreover, the composite bioplastic metafilm have a good transparency of average 74 % and a high haze over 80 %, which can serve as an outstanding substrate substitute for commercial polyethylene terephthalate film to address the demand of flexible ITO films. This work paves a creative way to design and manufacture the competitive bioplastic composite to replace daily‐used plastics.