The Role of Bio-Extracted Reduced Graphene Oxide in the Crystallization Kinetics of Chitosan Bio-Polymer

Carbon nanomaterials have recently attracted wide scientific applications due to their tunable properties. These novel materials act as best fillers that can provide substantial benefits due to their high strength, thermal conductivity, and electrical conductivities. With their huge applications as bulk materials, when implemented in polymer matrix as fillers, they give rise to new promising materials with which their properties can be tuned to suit a particular application. Besides the development of these new nanocomposite materials, there exist some challenges which must be fully surpassed to explore the potentiality of application of carbon-based nanocomposites. Reduced graphene oxide is one of the carbon derivatives which has attracted the current advancement in technology, and recently, it found its new applications in super capacitors used in electronic industries. The limiting factor for its exploration is the affordability. New and affordable sources of these graphene-based nanomaterial have to be devised, for fully realization of their potential applications. In this study, reduced graphene oxide and the bio-polymer chitosan were extracted from the locally available bio waste materials. Nanocomposites were prepared at 50% rGO: chitosan ratio. The films were then prepared by spin coating method. Prepared films were subjected to morphological analysis. From the results, it was observed that rGO induced chitosan crystallization, which led to formation of dendritic structures. Cellulose nanocrystals have thus displayed temperature dependent positive uniaxial birefringence.