Large-Scale Nanofiber Manufacturing| A Robust, Biodegradable, and Fire-Retardant CelluloseNanofibers-Based Structural Material Fabricated from NaturalSargassum

Academician Yu Shuhong et al. from University of Science and Technology of China: A Robust, Biodegradable and Flame-Retardant Nanofiber Material Made from Natural Sargassum

Challenge: Compared with petrochemical materials, cellulose has significant advantages in mechanical properties, thermal properties, cost and biodegradability. However, the flammability of cellulose hinders its practical applications to some extent, making the improvement of flame retardancy in cellulose nanofiber-based materials a research hotspot.

Approach: Academician Yu Shuhong and Associate Professor Guan Qingfang's team from University of Science and Technology of China extracted cellulose nanofibers and alginate from abundant natural sargassum as high-strength nanoscale building blocks, then prepared sargassum cellulose flame-retardant structural materials through a bottom-up hydrogel layer-by-layer method.

Innovation 1: The obtained structural materials exhibited excellent mechanical properties (≈297 MPa), thermal stability (≈200 °C), low coefficient of thermal expansion (≈7.17×10-6 K-1) and flame-retardant performance.

Innovation 2: This work significantly improved the utilization rate of seaweed residues and natural polymers, providing a bio-based flame-retardant strategy with broad development prospects in the field of fiber-based high-performance structural materials.