Cellulose, a raw material with fascinating structure and properties, is one of the most abundant natural polymers in the Earth. It is mainly obtained from wood and plant fibers although other microorganisms like bacteria can also produce this biopolymer. It is considered an almost inexhaustible source of raw material for the increasing demand for environmentally friendly and biocompatible products. Interestingly, the molecular structure imparts cellulose with its characteristic properties: hydrophilicity, chirality and biodegradability. Moreover, the large number of hydroxyl groups make its surface strongly reactive, allowing and facilitating its modification or functionalization. In this work, cellulose was tuned in several ways in order to create biomaterials for two kind of applications: the packaging and biomedical sectors. In order to replace petrol-based products in the packaging sector some crucial properties should be provided to cellulose: wet strength, antimicrobial, antioxidant and barrier properties. Papers from sisal with improved wet-strength properties were obtained through the Laccase_Tempo system. This system allowed creating new CHO and/or COOH groups in cellulose that increased wet strength through the creation of hemiacetal linkages. On the other hand, a new biomaterial with huge antimicrobial capacity was built by grafting chemical compounds to modified cellulose. Concerning the antioxidant property, it was demonstrated that degrading the xylan polymer with several xylanases, xylooligosaccharides with different antioxidant activities can be obtained. Finally, combing wood and bacterial cellulose biomaterials with increased barrier properties to air and water were constructed. On the other hand, due to the versatility of papers made from cellulose new paper based microfluidics devices with biomedical applications can be created. Structural characteristics of paper, such as basis weight and degree of refining, were optimized and correlated with blood typing test resolution.

Tuning cellulose to build renewable biomaterials

2019 Spring National Meeting

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