Improvement of thermal stability of insulation paper cellulose by modified polysiloxane grafting

Abstract

We present a method for improving the thermal stability of insulation paper cellulose. A polysiloxane was grafted to the hydroxyl group connected to the C6 atom in the cellulose chain. The effects of the mass fraction of polysiloxane on the mechanical properties and glass-transition temperatures of model cellulose samples modified by polysiloxane grafting were investigated using molecular dynamics simulations. The results show that for four models, with polysiloxane mass fractions of 0%, 3.3%, 6.5%, and 12.2%, the best chain performance was achieved using a mass fraction of 6.5%. The glass-transition temperature of the modified cellulose with a 6.5% mass fraction of polysiloxane was 48 K higher than that of unmodified cellulose, which shows that modification improved the thermal stability of the cellulose.