Nacre-Inspired Black Phosphorus/Nanofibrillar Cellulose Composite Film with Enhanced Mechanical Properties and Superior Fire Resistance
Shuilai Qiu, Xiyun Ren, Xia Zhou, Tao Zhang, Lei Song, Yuan Hu
Abstract
Natural nacre offers an optimized guiding principle for the assembly of lightweight and high-strength nanocomposites with excellent mechanical properties. Inspired by the “brick-and-mortar” layered structure of natural nacre, we present a cohort of bioinspired nanocomposites consisting of nanofibrillar cellulose (NFC) and few-layer hydroxyl functionalized black phosphorus (BP–OH) via a vacuum-assisted filtration self-assembly procedure. Owing to the well dispersed two-dimensional (2D) BP–OH in one-dimensional (1D) NFC and strong interfacial hydrogen bonding between them, these novel nacre-like BP–OHx/NFC composite films show excellent mechanical performance with tensile strength up to 214.0 MPa, 300% increase compared to pure NFC and tensile fracture strain up to 23.8%, 1.8 times higher than that of pure NFC. Moreover, these nacre-like composite films bare good fire resistance and high thermal stability. This nacre-inspired approach demonstrates a promising strategy for designing high-performance BP–OHx/NFC composite film, and the obtained bioinspired material could be a potential candidate in the application of flexible construction materials and flame retarded insulation materials.