Property prediction of super-strong nanocellulose fibers

Abstract: The innovative technology behind production of strong biofilaments involves the process of spinning filaments from nanoparticles extracted from wood. These nanoparticles are called cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs). The spun filaments can have high mechanical properties, rivaling many other plant based materials, and could be an environmentally friendly replacement for many materials in the future such as fabrics and composites. Before mass production might be possible, the optimal dispersion properties must be determined for the intended use, with regard to concentration, method of oxidation (TEMPO-oxidation or carboxymethylation) and pretreatment through sonication and centrifugation. In this bachelor’s thesis attributes of spun filaments were investigated in order to find a correlation between mechanical properties and the effects of concentration, method of oxidation as well as sonication and centrifugation of the dispersions. The mechanical properties were also compared to the fibrils’ ability to entangle and align during flow-focusing. A variety of analytical methods: flow-stop, tensile testing, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and wide angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) were implemented for the dispersions and filaments. The results from this study show that flow-stop analysis could be used to determine which CNF dispersions are spinnable and which are non-spinnable, along with which spinnable dispersion would yield the strongest filament. It was also concluded that crystallinity of fibrils affects the mechanical properties of filaments and that TCNFs are generally more crystalline than CMCs. Pretreatment through sonication and centrifugation seems to have a negative impact on spinnability and sonication in combination with low concentration seems to lead to non-spinnable conditions. On the other hand, sonicated dispersions seem to yield a greater number of samples without aggregates than non-sonicated ones. Aggregates, however, seem to only affect ultimate stress out of the measured mechanical properties. Furthermore, concentration and viscosity affect spinnability and CMC dispersions seem to yield thicker filaments than TCNF dispersions. However, due to lack of statistically validated data any definitive conclusions could not be drawn.