Nanocellulose’s unique characteristics make it a valuable material for many applications. Currently, the production capacity of cellulose nanofibers (CNF) is scarce due to high production costs, resulting in CNF prices up to $1000/kg. CNF is commonly produced from bleached wood fibers using expensive chemicals followed by mechanical fibrillation. Our ultimate goal is to develop an inexpensive method to produce nanocellulose, thus increasing the production capacity and lowering the cost of CNF for applications such as “smart packaging”, and bioplastic. Our process uses low-cost agricultural residues combined with mild process conditions and simple process units for easy scale-up. Briefly, the process involves chemi/mechanical treatment, mechanical fibrillation, and homogenization. The final nanocellulose products contain cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin and are referred to as lignocellulosic nanofibrils (LCNF) and microfibrils (LCMF). Further homogenization step results in two new products: homogenized H-LCNF and H-LCMF. TEMPO oxidation was performed for comparison, resulting in TEMPO-CNF.<br/><br/>Our LCNF and H-LCNF had similar morphology to that obtained via TEMPO oxidation. LCMF and H-LCMF showed a uniform network with much higher fiber size ratios (16 nm wide). Despite TEMPO-CNF having a significantly higher charge density than all other samples, our nanocellulose products showed colloidal stability due to high hemicellulose content. Finally, the different nanocelluloses produced were used as reinforcing agents in PVA composite films, and they all showed improvements in Tensile Strength and Young’s Modulus compared to neat PVA. PVA/H-LCNF showed remarkable enhancement in both strength and toughness of the material, which is not very common in composites.

Conversion of low-cost agricultural residues to nanocellulose products

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.