Production of microfibrillated cellulose fibers and their application in polymeric composites

Tensile benefits of nanofibers in commercial paint films

“…Most published studies focused on higher fiber concentration of cellulose (0.5 wt% and above) and showed that both microfibrillated and nanofibrillated celluloses generally decreased polymeric extensibility in exchange for improvements in strength or toughness. 58–60 Microfibrillated celluloses were shown to decrease the extensibility of poly(vinyl alcohol) matrices more than nanofibrillated celluloses at the same weight loadings. 61 From a pragmatic point of view, despite the increased extensibility, microfibrillated cellulose systems are not appropriate as paint additives, due to their poor stain resistance, in contrast to the FF synthetic polymeric fibers which have a similar improvement in extensibility and an increased improvement in toughness while improving stain resistance.…”

“…S6(a) †), despite a surfeit of literature demonstrating the opposite. Both synthetic 5 and natural 58 nanofibers are generally used as additives to improve the strength of polymeric matrices. Tensile strength is expected to improve with fiber concentration as a networked structure is reached above the percolation threshold, 62 before reaching an upper limit after which tensile properties deteriorate due to nanofiber aggregation 30,63,64 or the introduction of air voids.…”