Electrically conductive bacterial cellulose composite membranes produced by the incorporation of graphite nanoplatelets in pristine bacterial cellulose membranes

Abstract

Graphite nanoplatelets (GNPs) were utilized to improve the electrical conductivity of pristine bacterial cellulose (BC) membranes. By physical and chemical methods, flake-shaped GNPs, weaving through the surface layer of web-like cellulose nanofibrils, were indeed fixed or trapped by the adjacent nanofibrils in the BC surface network, for comparison, rod-shaped multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were homogeneously inserted into BC membrane through the pore structures and tunnels within the BC membrane. Strong physical and chemical interaction exists between the BC nanofibrils and the particles of GNP or MWCNT even after 15 h sonication. BC membrane with 8.7 wt% incorporated GNPs reached the maximum electrical conductivity of 4.5 S/cm, while 13.9 wt% MWCNT/BC composite membrane achieved the maximum electrical conductivity of 1.2 S/cm. Compared with one dimensional (1-D) MWCNTs, as long as GNPs inserted into BC membranes, the 2-D reinforcement of GNPs was proven to be more effective in improving the electrical conductivity of BC membranes thus not only break the bottleneck of further improvement of the electrical conductivity of BC-based composite membranes but also broaden the applications of BC and GNPs.