Flexible cement fibers with high toughness and water-activated setting behavior for construction
Kunkun Zhu, Yaoting Liang, Jingjing Yuan, Hao Yu, Liquan Jiang, Jinfeng Wang, Jinming Zhang, Jun Zhang, Dengpeng Song, Liangjun Xia, Xiaofang Zhang, Weilin Xu
Abstract
Brittle fracture and facile crack initiation present significant challenges for the toughening and processing of cementitious composites. In this work, the continuous and large-scale fabrication of cement-based fiber is enabled by cellulose-assisted wet spinning strategy, during which cement grains are in-situ implanted into porous cellulose matrix. The subsequent hydration process induces the in-situ formation of a hard continuous network which interconnects with the flexible porous cellulose skeleton, leading an interpenetrating dual-network architecture formed within the resulting cellulose-supported cement-based (CSC) fibers. This architecture provides simultaneous mechanical strength and toughness. Moreover, the resulting CSC fibers exhibit hydration-enabled manufacturability and can be woven into fabrics. The CSC fiber fabric demonstrates high toughness and impact resistance, lightweight properties, low thermal conductivity, and great water-resistance, holding significant potential for applications in thermal insulation, seismic high-rise buildings, and durable construction materials. Scalable cement-based fibers featuring dual network architecture were developed via a cellulose-supported wet-spinning strategy, with water-activated setting behavior, allowing cement-based fabric manufacture for customized construction.