Developing Polyionic Biocomposite Materials through Natural Fiber Welding

Biomaterials such as cotton and silk are abundant natural resources that have demonstrated material properties equal or superior to many synthetic polymers. Using ionic liquids (ILs) and the Natural Fiber Welding (NFW) process, these biomaterials can be chemically and physically enhanced. Here we present our progress on using imidazolium-based polymerizable ionic liquids (Poly-ILs) in the NFW process to prepare polyionic biocomposites. A variety of Poly-ILs with different cation and anion structures were synthesized and subsequently characterized using 1 H and 13 C NMR. Each Poly-IL was evaluated for its ability to (i) polymerize and (ii) solubilize a biopolymer (cellulose) matrix, revealing anion structural motifs that either limit or enhance a Poly-IL’s ability to polymerize and weld. Optimized parameters yielded polyionic biocomposite materials whose physicochemical properties were evaluated using ATR, SEM and EIS. Figure 1