Nanocomposites of Polyurethane and Cellulose

BELLESI, NATALIA E.; AUAD, MARÍA L.; ARANGUREN, MIRTA I.; MARCOVICH, NORMA E.

San Pedro

Congreso; Fifth International Symposium on Natural Polymers and Composites, Isnapol 2004; 2004

The mechanical properties of elastomers could be enhanced in severals orders of magnitude by adding cellulose microfibrils to the polymeric matrix if an ideal dispersion was achieved. In this work, cellulose crystals, free of defects, were produced from microcrystalline cellulose by acid hydrolysis. The microcrystals were characterized by OM and TEM. Stable colloidal suspensions of cellulose microcrystallites in DMF were prepared. The cellulose crystallites-DMF suspensions were used to produce reinforced polyurethane elastomers, highly transparent, which will allow to study the dispersion of the microcrystals in the composite by light scattering.