Chemical Modification of Cellulose Fibres and Fibrils for Design of New Materials

Due to the growing interest in biobased materials in today’s society, where the need for a cyclic economy is obvious, there has been a huge increase in the interest for using cellulose due to its excellent mechanical and chemical properties. However, the properties of cellulose have to be modified and improved in order to satisfy advanced material applications where the cellulose properties can be tuned to fit the properties of other components in composite mixtures. This thesis explores the heterogeneous chemical modification of cellulose for improved material properties of cellulose-based materials and the use of cellulose fibres and fibrils in novel applications. In the first part of the work described in this thesis, a fundamental study was performed to clarify how the chemical composition and the fibre/fibril structure of the cellulose following chemical modification affect the material properties. The second part of the work was aimed at exploring the potential for using the chemically modified fibres/fibrils in novel material applications. Lignocellulosic fibres with different chemical compositions were modified by periodate oxidation and borohydride reduction, and it was found that the most important factor was the amount of holocellulose present in the fibres, since lignin-rich fibres were less reactive and less responsive to the treatments. Despite the lower reactivity of lignin-rich fibres, it was however possible to improve their mechanical properties and to achieve a significant increase in the compressive strength of papers prepared from modified unbleached kraft fibres. The chemical modifications were then expanded to nine different molecular structures and two different degrees of modification. Fibres modified at low degrees of modification were used to prepare handsheets, followed by mechanical and physical characterization. Highly modified fibres were also used to prepare cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs). It was found that the properties of handsheet
QC 20180711