Flexible Bacterial Cellulose Permalloy nanocomposite xerogel sheets size scalable magnetic actuator cum electrical conductor

TL;DR

This paper presents the development of flexible, scalable bacterial cellulose-based xerogel sheets embedded with permalloy nanoparticles, exhibiting tunable magnetic and electrical properties suitable for actuator and conductor applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to produce flexible permalloy-cellulose nanocomposite xerogel sheets with controlled magnetic and electrical characteristics.

Findings

Sheets exhibit room temperature magnetization of 20 emu/g.

Electrical conductivity increases from 7 S/cm to 40 S/cm with pressing pressure.

Nanoparticles show bimodal size distribution with distinct magnetic behaviors.

Abstract

Permalloy nanoparticles containing bacterial cellulose hydrogel obtained after reduction was compressed into a xerogel flexible sheet by hot pressing at 60 C at different pressures. The permalloy nanoparticles with an ordered structure have a bimodal size distribution centered around 25 nm and 190 nm. The smaller nanoparticles are superparamagnetic while the larger particles are ferromagnetic at room temperature. The sheets have a room temperature magnetisation of 20 emu/g and a coercivity of 32 Oe. The electrical conductivity of the flexible sheets increases with hot pressing pressure from 7 S/cm to 40 S/cm at room temperature.