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Register a new userDevelopment of an Extrudable Paste to build Mycelium-bound Composites
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Added by
Hortense Le Ferrand
Publication date
2020
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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Mycelium-bound composites are promising materials for sustainable packaging, insulation, fashion, and architecture. However, moulding is the main fabrication process explored to date, strongly limiting the ability to design the complex shapes that could widen the range of applications. Extrusion is a facile and low energy-cost process that has not been explored yet for mycelium-bound composites with design freedom and structural properties. In this study, we combine cheap, easily and commonly available agricultural waste materials, bamboo microfibres, chitosan, and mycelium from Ganoderma Lucidum, to establish a composite mixture that is workable, extrudable and buildable. We study the impact of bamboo fibre size, chitosan concentration, pH and weight ratio of bamboo to chitosan to determine the optimum growth condition for the mycelium as well as highest mechanical stiffness. The resulting materials have thus low energy costs, are sustainable and can be shaped in diverse forms easily. The developed composition is promising to further explore the use of mycelium-bound materials for structural applications using agricultural waste.
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Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs)-polymer composites are promising candidates for a myriad of applications. Ad-hoc CNTs-polymer composite fabrication techniques inherently pose roadblock to optimized processing resulting in microstructural defects i.e., void formation, poor interfacial adhesion, wettability, and agglomeration of CNTs inside the polymer matrix. Although improvement in the microstructures can be achieved via additional processing steps such as-mechanical methods and/or chemical functionalization, the resulting composites are somewhat limited in structural and functional performances. Here, we demonstrate that 3D printing technique like-direct ink writing offers improved processing of CNTs-polymer composites. The shear-induced flow of an engineered nanocomposite ink through the micronozzle offers some benefits including reducing the number of voids within the epoxy, improving CNTs dispersion and adhesion with epoxy, and partially aligns the CNTs. Such microstructural changes result in superior mechanical performance and heat transfer in the composites compared to their mold-casted counterparts. This work demonstrates the advantages of 3D printing over traditional fabrication methods, beyond the ability to rapidly fabricate complex architectures, to achieve improved processing dynamics for fabricating CNT-polymer nanocomposites with better structural and functional properties.
We demonstrate that polymer composites with a low loading of graphene, below 1.2 wt. %, are efficient as electromagnetic absorbers in the THz frequency range. The epoxy-based graphene composites were tested at frequencies from 0.25 THz to 4 THz, revealing total shielding effectiveness of 85 dB (1 mm thickness) with graphene loading of 1.2 wt. % at the frequency f=1.6 THz. The THz radiation is mostly blocked by absorption rather than reflection. The efficiency of the THz radiation shielding by the lightweight, electrically insulating composites, increases with increasing frequency. Our results suggest that even the thin-film or spray coatings of graphene composites with thickness in the few-hundred-micrometer range can be sufficient for blocking THz radiation in many practical applications.
Previously, we have shown the advantages of an approach based on microstructural modulation of the functional phase and topology of periodically arranged elements to program wave scattering in ferromagnetic microwire composites. However, the possibility of making full use of composite intrinsic structure was not exploited. In this work, we implement the concept of material plainification by an in-built vertical interface on randomly dispersed short-cut microwire composites allowing the adjustment of electromagnetic properties to a large extent. Such interface was modified through arranging wires of different structures in two separated regions and by enlarging or reducing these regions through wire concentration variations leading to polarization differences across the interface and hence microwave tunability. When the wire concentration was equal in both regions, two well-defined transmission windows with varied amplitude and bandwidth were generated. Wire concentration fluctuations resulted in strong scattering changes ranging from broad passbands to stopbands with pronounced transmission dips, demonstrating the intimate relationship between wire content and space charge variations at the interface. Overall, this study provides a novel method to rationally exploit interfacial effects in microwire composites. Moreover, the advantages of enabling significantly tunable scattering spectra by merely 0.053 vol. % filler loading and relatively simple structure make the proposed composite plainification strategy instrumental to designing microwave filters with broadband frequency selectivity.
In a recent study, we developed ultralow-binder-content (UBC) structural materials based on lunar soil simulant and thermoset binders. In the current research, we investigated thermoplastic binders. Compared to thermosets, advanced thermoplastics could be more UV resistant, more durable, more robust, and recyclable. Our main technology is the compaction self-assembly (CSA). By using only ~4 wt% polyetherketoneketone (PEKK) binder, the thermoplastic-binder UBC composite was stronger than typical steel-reinforced concrete. The CSA operation was separate from the curing process. This study may provide an important in-situ resource utilization method for large-scale construction on Moon.
Highly flexible electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding material with excellent shielding performance is of great significance to practical applications in next-generation flexible devices. However, most EMI materials suffer from insufficient flexibility and complicated preparation methods. In this study, we propose a new scheme to fabricate a magnetic Ni particle/Ag matrix composite ultrathin film on a paper surface. For a ~2 micro meter thick film on paper, the EMI shielding effectiveness (SE) was found to be 46.2 dB at 8.1 GHz after bending 200,000 times over a radius of ~2 mm. The sheet resistance (Rsq) remained lower than 2.30 Ohm after bending 200,000 times. Contrary to the change in Rsq, the EMI SE of the film generally increased as the weight ratio of Ag to Ni increased, in accordance with the principle that EMI SE is positively related with an increase in electrical conductivity. Desirable EMI shielding ability, ultrahigh flexibility, and simple processing provide this material with excellent application prospects.
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