Preparation of Layered Aramid Nanomembranes by Vacuum Assisted Filtration Using Water and Ethanol as Proton Donors

In this paper, two kinds of proton donors, including water and ethanol, are introduced to prepare aramid nanofibers (ANFs) films. The formation mechanism of ANFs films and the influence of water and ethanol have been investigated. The main formation mechanism was demonstrated that ANFs could self-assemble into layered structure during the filtration process. The results showed that the ANFs films with water as proton donor had a tensile strength of 186.01 MPa and initial thermal decomposition temperature of 503.89 °C, which was 52.68 % and 11.79 % higher than those of the films prepared with ethanol as proton donor. Meanwhile, compared with spin coating and layer by layer self-assembly methods, vacuum assisted filtration was proved as an effective method to prepare the functional ANFs nanomembranes with highly regular and layered structures.