An environmentally friendly clay‐based polymer composite “paper”

The paper industry is closely related to our daily life. Vast quantities of paper requirement worldwide lead to astonishing lumber consumption and environmental pollution. So the exploration of alternative paper-like material should be of great importance. Here, we reported the preparation of a kind of environmentally friendly clay-based polymer composite paper-like film by incorporation of a kind of nanometer sized natural clay crystals, in this case attapulgite (ATP), into degradable poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) only though a simple blending and subsequently casting method. X-ray analysis shows that no changes in the crystalline structure of ATP were observed in the PVA matrix. Even with a high content of clay crystals in composites (50 wt %), the resulting ATP-PVA composite films (named as APCF) show excellent flexibility and tensile strength up to 22.19 MPa. The doping of ATP also results in flame retardant of composites, making it ideal candidate for packing and also building decoration applications. Interestingly, the APCF are printable and also much tough and tensile. Due to the simple fabrication, nearly no pollution emission process and easily to be scaled up, the APCF have great potentials as a kind of alternative for paper materials for diverse applications. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017, 134, 45128.