HIGH STRENGTH GREEN COMPOSITES

摘要

Most current composites end up in landfills at the end of their life. The next generation of composites currently being developed will be carbon-neutral, environment friendly, fully sustainable, and 'green' that use plant-based materials. At the end of their life these composites can be easily disposed of or composted completing nature's carbon cycle. This paper describes high strength composites made using liquid crystalline (LC) cellulose fibers and soy protein based resins. These composites could be designed to have tensile strengths of about 1 GPa. With their low density of 1.4 g/cc, they could be more than 6 times stronger than the strongest steel variety on 'per-weight basis' and hence can be termed as Advanced Green Composites. A comparison of the mechanical properties of soy resin based composites made using Kevlar~R and LC cellulose fibers indicate that LC cellulose composites have lower strength but higher toughness than Kevlar~R fiber-based composites. These properties suggest that today's petroleumbased advanced composites will be replaced by fully sustainable 'advanced green composites' that use plant-based fibers and resins.