New nanofiber materials may become a new choice for protective armor


According to the latest issue of "Science and Materials" magazine, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a new process for the production of ultrafine fibers called gel electrospinning. The resulting nano-scale fibers have exceptional strength and toughness, it may become a new choice for protective armor and nanocomposites.


Gregory Rutledge, a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that materials science emphasizes balance. Normally, researchers improve a certain property of a material with seeing a corresponding decrease in other properties. Strength and toughness are such a pair of contradictions. The higher the strength of the material, the lower the toughness, and its energy absorption mechanism is destroyed and more easily broken. The gel electrospinning technology has cracked this balance mechanism.


The new technology has improved the traditional gel spinning technology and added electricity. The resulting polyethylene microfibers can match or exceed the properties of some of the strongest fibers (Kevlar and Dyneema, which can be used to make body armor). Compared with carbon fiber and ceramic fiber, which are widely used in composite materials, the newly made gel electrospun polyethylene fiber has similar strength but higher toughness and lower density.


Unlike the traditional gel spinning process, the new technology using a single-stage process instead of a multi-stage process results in a fiber with a higher degree of stretch, which is only a few hundred nanometers in diameter instead of the traditional 15 microns. The use of electricity instead of mechanical pulling makes the thinner fibers with unique characteristics. Rutledge said that the fibers made by the new process can be used to make lighter and stronger protective materials in the future.


Source: Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences




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