Nanocellulose is gaining evident interest from researchers and engineers because of its renewability, biocompatibility, biodegradability, high mechanical strength, abundant hydroxyl groups for potential functionality, and extensive raw materials. Versatile sources are accordingly explored like harvested wood, annual plants, and agricultural residues. However, an abundant shrub plant, Amorpha f ruticosa Linn., has not yet been reported for isolating nanocellulose. We accordingly propose a green method with low energy consumption to extract nanocellulose from the vast shrub source via combined grinding and successive homogenization treatments. The derived nanocellulose possesses a fine structure with a diameter of ∼10 nm and an aspect ratio over 1000, high thermal stability with a maximum decomposition temperature of 337 °C, and similar composition with a hydroxyl group and a crystal I structure to that of natural cellulose. The demonstrated nanopaper presents visible light transmittance over 90% and haze below 15%, which further confirms the fine structure of the derived nanocellulose. Such a method could potentially broaden the major shrub plant with green, sustainable, up-scaled, and value-added applications in highend domains like electronics, biomedicine, aerospace, energy, environments, etc.

In order to improve the decay resistance of wood, we propose a novel method by in-situ hybridization of reactive monomers and nano-SiO2 within wood porous structure to modify wood structure and chemical components. Glycidyl methacrylate (GMA), and polyethylene glycol-200 dimethacrylate (PEGDMA) were first mixed and then penetrated into poplar wood cell lumen by vacuum/pressure treatments, followed by in-situ hybridization under an initiation condition. Scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observations described that the polymer-inorganic hybrid nanocomposite filled up cavities and tightly contacted the wood cell wall. Nano-SiO2 particles were uniformly dispersed into the formed polymer within wood pores. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis suggested that the nano-SiO2 probably chemical bonded to the polymer during the monomer polymerization. The derived wood-based polymer-inorganic hybrid nanocomposite exhibited remarkably improvement in decay resistance over the untreated wood as controls. Such treatment could potentially widen the wood applications with outstanding decay resistance.

Nanocellulose has many advantages, such as a wide range of sources of raw materials, renewability, biodegradability, high aspect ratio and large specific surface area. It can be potentially used in medicine, electronics, information technology, energy industry, aerospace and some other high-technological fields. For preparation of nanocellulose, it is particularly important to separate nanocellulose from raw materials by an environment-friendly method with environmental protection awareness. Consequently, we here report an effective and environmental friendly method to isolate nanocellulose from a shrub plant, i.e., Amorpha fruticosa Linn. Firstly, the plant fiber is pretreated with chemicals to remove lignin and hemicellulose; then the derived purified cellulose is pretreated with enzyme hydrolysis, followed by slight treatment of high-pressure homogenization. The results showed that with the assistance of enzyme pretreatment, effective isolation of nanocellulose could be achieved, resulting in materials with a uniform diameter distribution and an average value of about 10 nm. The aspect ratio of the derived nanocellulose is greater than 1000. Such results showed that the method was green and effective for nanocellulose isolation, and the derived biomaterial as a unique biocompatible and high-strength biomass nanomaterial could be used in biomedical, environmental protection and other fields.