PVA-co-PE nanofibers synergistically reinforced composite film with high transparency and flexibility

With the rapid development of electronic information technology, flexible transparent materials have been widely concerned and studied by researchers. Traditional transparent films have some problems in flexibility, transparency, or preparation method, which restrict their further development in scale production and application. Herein, we have developed a simple method by embedding the mass produced PVA-co-PE nanofibers into the PVP polymer matrix through photopolymerization method to produce a Polyvinyl Pyrrolidone/PVA-co-PE (PVP/NFs) composite film with high flexibility and transparency. Due to the nanoscale size and small refractive index contrast between nanofiber and PVP, the PVP/NFs composite film showed high light transmittance of 85.87%. In addition, the filling of PVA-co-PE nanofibers had a synergistic enhancement effect on the mechanical properties and thermal stability of PVP/NFs composite film. The tensile stress was as high as 16.6 MPa with a nanofiber content of 37.67 wt%, which was 4.05 times higher than that of the pure PVA-co-PE nanofiber film, and 2.81 times higher than that of the pure PVP film. Furthermore, the excellent flexibility of the PVP/NFs composite film enabled it to withstand a large-scale bending deformation under the action of external forces. The high flexibility, optical transparency and fast preparation made the PVP/NFs composite film a great application prospect in the intelligent electronic equipment and smart buildings.