Bioinspired design and chitin whisker reinforced chitosan membrane

• Chitin whisker was used as an interlayer to reinforce the chitosan matrix.
• Chitosan membrane with hierarchical structure was prepared by LBL method.
• Tensile strength of the prepared chitosan membranes reaches up to 122.8 MPa.
• Strength of this membrane is about 2.5 times than that of neat chitosan membrane.

Chitosan membrane possesses huge potential application in many fields, such as biomedicine, wastewater purification and environmental protection, however, the poor mechanical property restricts its further development. In this study, chitin whisker was prepared by hydrolysis method, and was firstly used as an interlayer to fabricate the multilayered chitosan membrane through layer-by-layer method, which is inspired by the natural materials' hierarchical structure. From the results of mechanical testing, it is shown that tensile strength of the multilayered chitosan membranes reaches up to 122.8 MPa, which is about 2.5 times than that of neat chitosan membrane (i.e. 49.5 MPa), and the elongation at break is sharply increased as well.

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