From pine sawdust to cellulose nanofibres

EHMAN, N.V.; TARRÉS, Q.; DELGADO-AGUILAR, M.; VALLEJOS, M.E.; FELISSIA, F.E.; AREA, M.C.; MUTJÉ, P.

CELLULOSE CHEMISTRY AND TECHNOLOGY

EDITURA ACAD ROMANE

Lugar: RUMANIA; Año: 2016 vol. 50 p. 361 - 367

0576-9787

Biorefinery technology is a current alternative to petroleumbased industry to produce energy, chemicals and materials. The use of forestand agricultural lignocellulosic residues as raw materials to generatevalue-added products has become a topic of great interest due to theirrenewability and availability. Pine sawdust is a promising candidate as rawmaterial for biorefinery. This waste, which comes from the primaryindustrialization of wood, is available in large quantities, at low cost, andis currently open-airburned. The aim of this study was to obtain cellulosenanofiber (CNF) from pine sawdust. Delignification methods were applied to pulpuntil a kappa number lower than 1was achieved. CNF was produced by thecombination of chemical (TEMPO-oxidation) pretreatment and mechanicaldestructuration in a homogenizer. Once CNF was produced at different oxidationdegrees, the degree of polymerization, cationic demand, carboxyl rate, and theyield of fibrillation were determined with the purpose of assessing the effectof the oxidation degree on the final properties thereof.Finally, thesuitability of using the obtained CNF as paper strength additive was studiedthrough the assessment of the mechanical properties increase of paper.