Hao J, Yan S, Yuan H, Du C, Tan Y. High-strength alginate fibers wet-spun from pre-crosslinked sodium alginate solutions.
Carbohydr Polym 2024;
342:122386. [PMID:
39048227 DOI:
10.1016/j.carbpol.2024.122386]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/18/2024] [Revised: 05/29/2024] [Accepted: 06/07/2024] [Indexed: 07/27/2024]
Abstract
Facing the severe problem of microplastic pollution, there is an urgent need to develop biodegradable fibers to replace the petrochemical fibers. Sodium alginate, a biomass polysaccharide, has gained widespread attentions recently for the fiber manufacture. However, the limited mechanical strength of alginate fibers restricts their usages as load-bearing fabrics and reinforcement fibers. Here, we develop a novel strategy to prepare alginate multifilaments using pre-crosslinked sodium alginate solutions. The increase in the pre-crosslinking ratio effectively hinders the disentanglement of sodium alginate chains at high stretches, causing an increase in the shear viscosity of the solution ascertained from the capillarity-driven thinning process from 4.5 Pa·s to 9.9 Pa·s and facilitating the high alignment and orientation of sodium alginate chains. The resultant fibers possess a breaking strength of 474 MPa, elongation at break of 16 %, Young's modulus of 14.4 GPa, and toughness of 51.8 MJ/m3, exceeding most biomass fibers without reinforcement additives. The high orientation degree of 0.865 and high spinnability of alginate multifilaments enable their applications in multi-channel encryption fabrics that exhibit distinct information under various optical conditions. This rheological regulation of spinning solutions provides a facile yet effective strategy to enhance the mechanical performance and broaden application scenarios of alginate fibers.
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