Materials Science & Engineering

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Author: search.filters.author.Briber, Robert M.

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    Cellulose Nanocomposites of Cellulose Nanofibers and Molecular Coils
    (MDPI, 2021-07-30) Henderson, Doug; Zhang, Xin; Mao, Yimin; Hu, Liangbing; Briber, Robert M.; Wang, Howard
    All-cellulose nanocomposites have been produced from cellulose nanofiber (CNF) suspensions and molecular coil solutions. Morphology and small-angle neutron scattering studies show the exfoliation and dispersion of CNFs in aqueous suspensions. Cellulose solutions in mixtures of ionic liquid and organic solvents were homogeneously mixed with CNF suspensions and subsequently dried to yield cellulose composites comprising CNF and amorphous cellulose over the entire composition range. Tensile tests show that stiffness and strength quantities of cellulose nanocomposites are the highest value at ca. 20% amorphous cellulose, while their fracture strain and toughness are the lowest. The inclusion of amorphous cellulose in cellulose nanocomposites alters their water uptake capacity, as measured in the ratio of the absorbed water to the cellulose mass, reducing from 37 for the neat CNF to less than 1 for a composite containing 35% or more amorphous cellulose. This study offers new insights into the design and production of all-cellulose nanocomposites.
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    Remote Chemical Sensing by SERS with Self-Assembly Plasmonic Nanoparticle Arrays on a Fiber
    (Frontiers Media, 2022-01-25) Zhang, Xin; Zhang, Kunyi; von Bredow, Hasso; Metting, Christopher; Atanasoff, George; Briber, Robert M.; Rabin, Oded
    An optical fiber was modified at the tip with a self-assembled plasmonic metamaterial that acts as a miniature surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrate. This optical fiber-based device co-localizes the laser probe signal and the chemical analyte at a distance remote from the spectrometer, and returns the scattered light signal to the spectrometer for analysis. Remote SERS chemical detection is possible in liquids and in dried samples. Under laboratory conditions, the analyte SERS signal can be separated from the background signal of the fiber itself and the solvent. An enhancement factor greater than 35,000 is achieved with a monolayer of the SERS marker 4-aminothiophenol.