Mxene/Cellulose and Chitin Nanofibers for Efficient Fabricating of Environmentally Friendly Printed Circuit Board Substrates

MXene-based 2D materials, cellulose, and chitin nanofibers with larger surface areas are hydrophilic, flexible, environmentally friendly, have high volumetric capacity, and are excellent for energy storage devices, electrodes, and hydrogen storage. The combination of these materials is used to solve some of the major problems of each one for specific applications, such as flexible electrical printed circuit boards (PCBs). Herein, we report the fabrication of biodegradable films composed of cellulose nanofibers, chitin nanofibers, and MXene, achieved through a casting method. This multilayer sandwich film exhibits favorable attributes, including resistance to thermal degradation, mechanical performance, structural flexibility, electrical conductivity, and heat release. The results show that the films made of chitin nanofibers were more resistant to thermal degradation than those made of cellulose nanofibers. Besides, the tensile strength of films increased with increasing cellulose and chitin nanofiber layers. Likewise, all produced thin sandwich films had fully dielectric properties along the thickness. Furthermore, the heat release rate increased by adding MXene to the nanofiber films, which confirms that MXene layers can help improve the safety of electrical devices such as green electronics.