Can “fibrillated” nanocellulosic fibers provide high value by-products for a forest based biorefinery?

The concept of the modern biorefinery focusses on producing a variety of liquid fuels and chemicals. In order to derive maximum value from lignocellulosic biomass, the production of high-value fibrillated materials can be used to complement the production of fuels and/or chemicals. While lignocellulosic fibers have traditionally been used for lower-value applications such as paper and packaging, an ever-growing suite of processing technologies can now be used to generate a variety of technical materials, including microfibrilated and nanofibrilated celluloses. Our ability to optimize specific fiber properties through application of these technologies enables the development of tailor-made materials for specific high-value, non-traditional applications, such as reinforcement of thermoset and thermoplastic composites and selective, rheological modification of paints, industrial fluids, and cosmetics.  

The current state of the art of cellulose fibrillation will be discussed, with an emphasis on the tuneability of fiber properties. Specifically, factors such as the degree of fibrillation, surface morphology and the dimensions of these fibrillated materials will be described. Optimization of fiber characteristics was achieved through combinations of mechanical, chemical and enzymatic processes. Since optimization of the fibrillated lignocellulosic/nanocellulosic materials requires accurate characterization, traditional pulp and paper measurement techniques were supplemented with recently-developed processes, designed to specifically characterize the surface morphology or fibrillation of these materials.

This work looked at the development, characterization, and optimization of fibrillated cellulosic materials for high-value, non-traditional applications, providing complementary high value coproduct streams to the high volume lower value biofuels produced in a biorefinery.