Flexible ceramic fibers and polymer composite and method of making the same

A process to make a flexible composite material comprising a flexible ceramic filler (Flexiramics™) and a polymer, the process comprising the steps of:

• a. Preparing a ceramic fibers' precursor solution, the precursor solution comprising (i) a dissolved metal's precursor for ceramic selected from the group consisting of metallic ions and metal containing polymer, where the metals are selected from the group consisting of Si+, Zr4+, Ti4+, Al3+, Zn2+, Mg2+, Pb4+, Ni2+, Sr2+, Ca2+, La3+;
• (ii) a polymer to increase the precursor solution's viscosity, with the solid content of the precursor solution (polymer plus precursor) being above 15% by weight in order to obtain the required deposition, and (iii) a solvent capable of providing the precursor solution with a sufficiently high evaporation rate;
• b. Allowing the dissolved metal precursors for ceramic to form a final metal oxide otherwise known as ceramic;
• c. Maintaining the precursor solution's viscocity between 0.01 and 1000 Pascal-second (Pa·s) at a shear rate of 0.1 s−1 in order to spin usable fibers;
• d. Spinning the precursor solution by using a spinning process selected from the group consisting of forcespinning, electrospinning and blowspinning wherein the spinning parameters are tunable so that the spinning step can result in a continuous film or polymeric fiber and with the spinning parameters being adaptable to each precursor solution;
• e. Annealing the polymeric fibers obtained from the spinning process, which polymeric fibers comprise metals precursor for ceramic, until all the organic content is burned out and the metallic ion oxidizes to form a ceramic;
• f. Tunning and calibrating annealing parameters, the annealing parameters comprising heating and cooling rates, annealing temperature and dwell time consistent with the thermal profile shown in FIG. 3 so a crystallinity comprising a crystal size of 1-100 nm and a smoothness of 0.05-5 nm of Rq of the resulting 20-10000 nm thick fibers is obtained, the annealing parameters being distinct and specific with respect to each material composition;
• g. Setting the annealing temperature above the ceramic fiber's crystallization point resulting in the formation of ceramic material;
• and
• h. Setting a dwell time from 0 to 5 hours.