Fabrication and applications of cellulose nanoparticle‐based polymer composites

Abstract

The impressive mechanical properties, reinforcing capability, abundance, low weight, low filler load requirements, and biodegradable nature of nanoparticles from bioresources such as cellulose, make it an ideal candidate for the development of green polymer nanocomposites. Significant amount of research in this area is primarily focused on the extraction, qualitative surface modification, and evaluation of mechanical performance after filling in polymer matrixes at different ratios. The extreme agglomeration tendency, hydrophilic nature, difficult dispersion in many organic solvents of cellulose nanoparticles are the challenging obstacles when fabrication of such nanocomposites is concerned. Traditional processing of polymer composites mainly through extrusion and melt compounding, is not easily possible in case of cellulose nanocomposites due to higher possibility of poor dispersion and degradation of nanofibers. Therefore, issues related to the fabrication of nanofiber‐based products and their application appears to be one of the most important areas in order to enhance their competitiveness with other nanoparticles. This review is aimed to summarize the recent accomplishments and issues involving the use of cellulose nanoparticles in the development of new polymeric materials. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2013. © 2012 Society of Plastics Engineers

Dry, hydrophobic microfibrillated cellulose powder obtained in a simple procedure using alkyl ketene dimer

“…Because of its high strength and stiffness, high aspect ratio, web-like structure, and its bio-based and renewable characteristics, MFC has been widely used in polymer preparation as an excellent reinforcement material (Fakirov et al 2008;Iwatake et al 2008;Lu et al 2008a, b;Nakagaito et al 2009;Wang and Drzal 2012;Miao and Hamad 2013;Pandey et al 2013). However, as demonstrated in a recent comprehensive overview, a break-through towards bulk use of MFC in polymer reinforcement has not been realized to date (Lee et al 2014).…”

Preparation and evaluation of high-lignin content cellulose nanofibrils from eucalyptus pulp

“…TEMPO-mediated oxidation has previously been reviewed in detail (Isogai et al 2011). Even though CNF are widely studied as a reinforcement in composites (Pandey et al 2013), cellulose by itself is hydrophilic, which makes it challenging to disperse in non-polar media and achieve strong interfacial interactions with commonly used polymers, e.g., polyethylene, polypropylene, or polystyrene due to poor compatibility (Herzele et al 2016). The interface problem has been addressed through several different approaches (Abe et al 2009;Habibi 2014), including the addition or preservation of lignin in cellulose fibrils due to its hydrophobicity (Abe et al 2009).…”

Damping performance of bamboo fibre-reinforced green composites

“…The GFRP have many advantages in terms of high mechanical performance and chemical stability, however they also have serious disadvantages after use; namely the technical difficulty in recycling; environmental load is high. Therefore, the development of the structural composite materials of which the environmental loading is smaller than conventional ones is required [2][3][4][5]. The green composites (fully biodegradable composite materials) which are composed of biodegradable resin and high strength natural fibre have been developed in recent years [6][7][8][9][10].…”