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Nanofibers are drawing the attention of engineers and scientists because their large surface-to-volume ratio is favorable for applications in medicine, filter technology, textile industry, lithium-air batteries, and optical sensors. However, when transferring nanofibers to a technical product in the form of a random network of fibers, referred to as nonwoven fabric, the stickiness of the freshly produced and thus fragile nanofiber nonwoven remains a problem. This is mainly because nanofibers strongly adhere to any surface because of van der Waals forces. In nature, there are animals that are actually able to efficiently produce, process, and handle nanofibers, namely cribellate spiders. For that, the spiders use the calamistrum, a comb-like structure of modified setae on the metatarsus of the hindmost (fourth) legs, to which the 10–30 nm thick silk nanofibers do not stick due to a special fingerprint-like surface nanostructure. In this work, we present a theoretical model of the interaction of linear nanofibers with a sinusoidally corrugated surface. This model allows for a prediction of the adhesive interaction and, thus, the design of a suitable surface structure to prevent sticking of an artificially nonwoven of nanofibers. According to the theoretical prediction, a technical analogon of the nanoripples was produced by ultrashort pulse laser processing on different technically relevant metal surfaces in the form of so-called laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS). Subsequently, by means of a newly established peel-off test, the adhesion of an electrospun polyamide fiber-based nonwoven was quantified on such LIPSS-covered aluminium alloy, steel, and titanium alloy samples, as well as on polished (flat) control samples as reference and, additionally, on samples with randomly rough surfaces. The latter revealed that the adhesion of electrospun nanofiber nonwoven is significantly lowered on the nanostructured surfaces compared with the polished surfaces.
Toxicological studies have shown that some types of carbon nanotubes may provoke asbestos-like effects including chronic inflammation and lung cancer. Inhaled carbon nanotubes may reach the deep lung tissue. Alveolar macrophages are responsible to remove such foreign objects from the alveoli in a process called phagocytosis. If a macrophage fails to uptake a nanotube completely, cell lesions may give rise to inflammation. It is currently assumed that short, flexible and long as well as granularly agglomerated (tangled) nanofibres are clearable by macrophages, whereas biodurable long and rigid nanotubes may persist in lung tissue. The flexural rigidity of nanofibres is therefore believed to be an important material property that governs fibre toxicity and needs to be investigated. The present work aims at determining the rigidity of nanofibres by detecting their resonance frequencies using a Dynamic Scanning Electron Microscope (DySEM) setup. By depositing and fixing a nanofibre to an oscillating support, it can be excited to vibrations and treated as a cantilevered beam. This way, its elastic modulus can be determined via Euler-Bernoulli’s beam theory. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were deposited on high frequency piezoelectric quartz crystals mounted on a scanning electron microscope (SEM) holder. When introduced into the SEM chamber and connected to a frequency-sweeping waveform generator, the quartz crystal actuates the deposited fibre. A lock-in amplified processes the secondary electron detector signal resulting from the electron beam modulated by the vibrating nanofibre. Whenever a fibre resonance is detected, the SEM image of the fibre is stored to identify the fibre oscillation mode. The found resonance frequencies and modes allow determining the elastic modulus accordingly. Since the frequency spacing of resonances is predicted by Euler-Bernoulli, the mode number can be identified and elastic modulus values be averaged. A significant number of individual MWCNTs were classified according to their level of rigidity. The applicability and reliability of the method will be discussed.
Toxicological studies have shown that some types of carbon nanotubes may provoke asbestos-like effects including chronic inflammation and lung cancer. Inhaled carbon nanotubes may reach the deep lung tissue. Alveolar macrophages are responsible to remove such foreign objects from the alveoli in a process called phagocytosis. If a macrophage fails to uptake a nanotube completely, cell lesions may give rise to inflammation. It is currently assumed that short, flexible and long as well as granularly agglomerated (tangled) nanofibres are clearable by macrophages, whereas biodurable long and rigid nanotubes may persist in lung tissue. The flexural rigidity of nanofibres is therefore believed to be an important material property that governs fibre toxicity and needs to be investigated. The present work aims at determining the rigidity of nanofibres by detecting their resonance frequencies using a Dynamic Scanning Electron Microscope (DySEM) setup. By depositing and fixing a nanofibre to an oscillating support, it can be excited to vibrations and treated as a cantilevered beam. This way, its elastic modulus can be determined via Euler-Bernoulli’s beam theory. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were deposited on high frequency piezoelectric quartz crystals mounted on a scanning electron microscope (SEM) holder. When introduced into the SEM chamber and connected to a frequency-sweeping waveform generator, the quartz crystal actuates the deposited fibre. A lock-in amplified processes the secondary electron detector signal resulting from the electron beam modulated by the vibrating nanofibre. Whenever a fibre resonance is detected, the SEM image of the fibre is stored to identify the fibre oscillation mode. The found resonance frequencies and modes allow determining the elastic modulus accordingly. Since the frequency spacing of resonances is predicted by Euler-Bernoulli, the mode number can be identified and elastic modulus values be averaged. A significant number of individual MWCNTs were classified according to their level of rigidity. The applicability and reliability of the method will be discussed.
Toxicological studies have shown that some types of carbon nanotubes may provoke asbestos-like effects including chronic inflammation and lung cancer. Inhaled carbon nanotubes may reach the deep lung tissue. Alveolar macrophages are responsible to remove such foreign objects from the alveoli in a process called phagocytosis. If a macrophage fails to uptake a nanotube completely, cell lesions give rise to inflammation. It is currently assumed that short, long and flexible, and granularly agglomerated (tangled) nanofibres are clearable by macrophages, whereas biodurable long and rigid nanotubes persist in the lung tissue. The flexural rigidity of nanofibres is therefore believed to an important material property that governs fibre toxicity and needs to be investigated. The present work aims at determining the rigidity of nanofibres by detecting their resonance frequencies using a Dynamic Scanning Electron Microscope (DySEM) setup. By depositing and fixing a nanofibre to an oscillating support, it can be excited to vibrations and treated as a cantilevered beam. This way, its elastic modulus can be determined via Euler-Bernoulli’s beam theory. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were deposited on high frequency piezoelectric quartz crystals mounted on a scanning electron microscope (SEM) holder. When introduced into the SEM chamber and connected to a frequency-sweeping waveform generator, the quartz crystal actuates the deposited fibre. A lock-in amplified processes the secondary electron detector signal resulting from the electron beam modulated by the vibrating nanofibre. Whenever a fibre resonance is detected, the SEM image of the fibre is stored to identify the fibre oscillation mode. The found resonance frequencies and modes allow determining the elastic modulus according. Since the frequency spacing of resonances is predicted by Euler-Bernoulli, the mode number can be checked and elastic modulus values be averaged. A significant number of MWCNTs have been classified according to their level of rigidity. The applicability and reliability of the method will be discussed.
Nanotechnology is one of the key technologies of the 21st century. The exploitation of 'new' effects that arise from materials structured on the nano-scale has also been proposed successfully for flame retardancy of polymers since the end of the 90s. Of all of the approaches these include, at this time the use of nanocomposites offers the best potential for industrial application, also some other ideas are sketched, such as using electrospun nanofibers mats or layer-by-layer deposits as protection coatings, as well as sub-micrometer multilayer coatings as effective IR-mirrors. The general phenomena, inducing a flow limit in the pyrolysing melt and changing the fire residue, are identified in nanocomposites. Key experiments are performed such as quasi online investigation of the protection layer formation to understand what is going on in detail. The flame retardancy mechanisms are discussed and their impact on fire behaviour quantified. With the latter, the presentation pushes forward the state of the art. For instance, the heat shielding is experimentally quantified for a layered silicate epoxy resin nanocomposite proving that it is the only import mechanism controlling the reduction in peak heat release rate in the investigated system for different irradiations. The flame retardancy performance is assessed comprehensively illuminating not only the strengths but also the weak points of the concepts. Guidelines for materials development are deduced and discussed. Apart from inorganic fillers (layered silicate, boehmite, etc.) not only carbon nanoobjects such as multiwall carbon nanotubes, multilayer graphene and graphene are investigated, but also nanoparticles that are more reactive and harbor the potential for more beneficial interactions with the polymer matrix.