3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Scheme 1 displays the fabrication process of
cellulose/CaCO3 membrane via a facile electrospinning
method. CA is translated into cellulose by alkaline hydrolysis
benefitting to improve the affinity with electrolytes.[29] The SEM
images were used to record the micromorphology, and the corresponding
results were shown in Figure 1 . It can be found that nano
CaCO3 is spherical with a diameter of about 100 nm
(Figure 1a ,). Nano CaCO3 is commonly used as
plastic filler with toughening and reinforcing effects, also improving
the thermal deformation temperature and dimensional stability of
polymers.[30, 31] The morphologies of
cellulose membrane and
cellulose/CaCO3 membranes are shown in Figure
1b-d , these membranes show randomly arranged nanofibers and porous
networks, which helps for liquid electrolyte uptake and fast migration
of ions.[32, 33] As shown in Figure 1b, for cellulose membrane, the
diameter of assembled fibers is uniform and the surface of fibers is
smooth (Figure 1b ). After the introduction of nano
CaCO3, the surface of cellulose/ CaCO3fibers becomes rougher and the diameter uniformity decreases accompanied
by some humps after the addition of CaCO3. It is
probably due to CaCO3 particles being encapsulated
inside the fibers. These rough protrusions become more numerous as the
amount of CaCO3 addition increases (Figure 1c
and 1d ). Furthermore, the uniform distribution of Ca elements indicates
that CaCO3 and polymer matrixes achieve compact and
intact combination (Figure 1e ). Notably, the high magnification
image in Figure 1f exhibits that nanoparticles are also coated
on the fiber surface.