Highly reinforced and degradable lignocellulose biocomposites by polymerization of new polyester oligomers

Abstract

Unbleached wood fibers and nanofibers are environmentally friendly bio-based candidates for material production, in particular, as reinforcements in polymer matrix biocomposites due to their low density and potential as carbon sink during the materials production phase. However, producing high reinforcement content biocomposites with degradable or chemically recyclable matrices is troublesome. Here, we address this issue with a new concept for facile and scalable in-situ polymerization of polyester matrices based on functionally balanced oligomers in pre-formed lignocellulosic networks. The idea enabled us to create high reinforcement biocomposites with well-dispersed mechanically undamaged fibers or nanocellulose. These degradable biocomposites have much higher mechanical properties than analogs in the literature. Reinforcement geometry (fibers at 30 µm or fibrils at 10–1000 nm diameter) influenced the polymerization and degradation of the polyester matrix. Overall, this work opens up new pathways toward environmentally benign materials in the context of a circular bioeconomy.

Molecular understanding of the morphology and properties of lignin nanoparticles: unravelling the potential for tailored applications

“…In effect, different strategies have been, and will continue to be explored, leading to the further development of the concepts of the biorefinery. 2,3 Lignin has been proposed for many applications, including highly reinforced biodegradable composites, 4 tough hydrogel adhesives, 5 etc. Lignin nanoparticles (LNPs) in particular have been proposed for many applications, such as food additives, 6 packaging, 7 pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries.…”

An All‐Natural Wood‐Inspired Aerogel

“…Although cellulose‐based aerogels have been explored in many previous works, [10] the SNWP‐based aerogel still has unique advantages over other CNF‐based or regenerated cellulose based aerogels. Compared with the cellulose nanofibers, another well‐explored cellulosic building block extracted from wood, [3a, 11] the SNWPs are prepared with a lower cost of both the energy for mechanical processing and the chemicals for pretreatment (Supporting Information Table S1) [12] . As shown in Table S1, the preparation of SNWP requires fewer chemicals than the carboxymethylated CNF and TEMPO‐CNF and does not need the bleached pulp as the raw material which avoids the cost of pulping.…”

Multiscale Engineered Waste Wood Particles toward a Sustainable, Scalable, and High‐Performance Structural Material

“…[33,34] Bulk wood fiber-based materials strengthened by adhesives, inorganic particles or polymers can be produced at commercial scales but are generally weak at interfaces, resulting in poor mechanical properties (i.e., flexural strength <110 MPa, and tensile strength <85 MPa, and storage modulus <5 GPa), which cannot meet the high-performance requirements of next-generation structural materials. [35][36][37][38][39] Therefore, it is still challenging to mass-produce high-performance bulk structural materials based on wood processing residues.…”