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Microfibrillated cellulose foams obtained by a straightforward freeze–thawing–drying procedure

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Abstract

Microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) is continuously gaining attention due to its outstanding mechanical properties, in particular high strength-to-weight ratio. Recently, more and more studies target the production of porous materials, such as foams, out of this natural resource. Commonly, an energy-consuming freeze–drying method is utilized for producing pure MFC porous structures from water-based suspensions, which renders these products particularly unattractive for industry. Although alternatives for foam production have been proposed, using either modified MFC or with various additives, the freeze–drying step is still one of the most critical bottle-neck of MFC foam production upscaling. A novel straightforward freeze–thawing–drying procedure assisted by the common additive urea was herein proposed. Such method allows the production of mechanically stable, lightweight MFC structures under low-cost ambient conditions drying. The influence of the cellulose fibril characteristics, the suspension formulation and the process parameters on the final foam properties have been studied in terms of porosity, density and mechanical properties.

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Adapted from Donius et al. (2014)

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Esther Strub (Applied Wood Materials, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa), Duebendorf, Switzerland.) and Anja Huch (Applied Wood Materials, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa), Duebendorf, Switzerland.) for the SEM microscopy, Daniel Heer (Applied Wood Materials, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa), Duebendorf, Switzerland.) and Hans Michel (Mechanical Systems Engineering, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa), Duebendorf, Switzerland.) for the compression tests, as well as the company Stendal (Berlin, Germany) for providing the ECF fibers. Part of this work has been performed by the use of the Empa Platform for Image Analysis (http://empa.ch/web/s499/software-/-imaging-platform) at Empa’s Center for X-ray Analytics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Wood Materials, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa), Duebendorf, Switzerland

    Sébastien Josset, Lynn Hansen, Paola Orsolini, Tanja Zimmermann & Thomas Geiger

  2. Concrete/Construction Chemistry Laboratory, Center for X-Ray Analytics, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa), Duebendorf, Switzerland

    Michele Griffa

  3. Center for X-Ray Analytics, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa), Duebendorf, Switzerland

    Olga Kuzior

  4. Mechanical Systems Engineering, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa), Duebendorf, Switzerland

    Bernhard Weisse

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  1. Sébastien Josset
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Correspondence to Thomas Geiger.

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Josset, S., Hansen, L., Orsolini, P. et al. Microfibrillated cellulose foams obtained by a straightforward freeze–thawing–drying procedure. Cellulose 24, 3825–3842 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-017-1377-8

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