Very Strong, Super‐Tough, Antibacterial, and Biodegradable Polymeric Materials with Excellent UV‐Blocking Performance
Xiao Zhang, Weifeng Liu, Danting Sun, Jinhao Huang, Xueqing Qiu, Zhixian Li, Xiaoxian Wu
Abstract
Abstract In this work, inspired by the dynamic sacrificial hydrogen bonds in biological materials, a very strong, super‐tough, antibacterial, and cost‐effective biodegradable poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) nanocomposite material was developed by incorporating the nanoscale antibacterial agent TA@LS−Ag. TA@LS−Ag was prepared from the green biomass tannic acid (TA) and sodium lignosulfonate (LS), and was facilely incorporated into the PVA matrix with a homogeneously interspersed nanoparticle size of about 20 nm. The PVA nanocomposite film with 2 wt % addition of TA@LS−Ag achieved the highest specific toughness of 262 J g −1 among the PVA‐based films to date, which is far higher than that of natural spider silk (150–190 J g −1 ), as well as a very high tensile strength of 131.6 MPa. The excellent tensile strength and superior toughness were attributed to synergy of the nanophase separation structure and the intense hydrogen‐bonding interactions between the nanoparticles and PVA matrix. The PVA/TA@LS−Ag nanocomposite films exhibited good antibacterial properties, despite the extremely low silver content (0.032–0.32 wt ‰). TA@LS−Ag also endowed the PVA films with excellent antioxidant and UV‐shielding performance. As the biomass‐derived LS and TA and the PVA matrix are all biodegradable, this work offers a facile strategy for preparing high‐performance antibacterial and biodegradable polymeric materials.