Fabrication of Poly(Vinyl) Alcohol-Cellulose Nanocrystal Hybrid Aerogel

Abstract

In this paper, a series of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) aerogels hybrid with cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) was successfully prepared using freeze-drying process. The influence of different fractions of CNC and crosslinking agent; glutaraldehyde (GA) on the mechanical of PVA/CNC hybrid aerogels property was evaluated by means of compressive strength. Results show that the mechanical property of hybrid aerogels has been improved with the addition of CNC and GA. Variation in the CNC and GA content also led to differences in the porous structure morphologies. Nevertheless, higher content of GA caused adverse effect to the strength of hybrid aerogel which associated to the excessive crosslinking and smaller number of pores formation as evident from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis.