19 Jul 2010
The Canadian federal and Quebec governments are stumping up with at least $C20 million to build a demonstration plant, manufacturing nanocrystalline cellulose from wood fibre. It will have an output of a tonne of a day when it's finished in about 20 months.
The money will go toward the $C32.4 million building cost and $C8.4 million operating cost of the plant, to be built at Domtar Corporation's pulp and paper mill at Windsor, Quebec.
As well as $C10.2 million each from Quebec and Canada, Domtar is looking for $12 million from the federal Pulp and Paper Green Transformation Program.
Domtar and its partner, FPInnovations, will use the plant to explore the commercial viability of nanocrystalline cellulose. Domtar is the largest integrated manufacturer of uncoated freesheet paper in North America, along with papergrade, fluff and specialty pulp. Canadian-based FPInnovations is a not-for-profit forest products research institute.
Nanocrystalline cellulose is a renewable, recyclable and abundant nanomaterial made of cellulose fibres from the wood pulp manufacturing process.
Both John Williams, Domtar president and CEO, and Pierre Lapointe, president and CEO of FPInnovations, said they were confident the material will have commercial applications. It has already been used in the manufacture of iridescent and magnetic flexible films, pigments, construction products, and bioplastics. Researchers are continuing to work on other potential applications and products.
One of the main attributes of nanocrystalline cellulose is its ability to strengthen plastics. In addition it is lightweight and biodegradable.
“By adding an ounce of crystals to a pound of plastic, you can increase the strength of the plastic by a factor of 3000,” said Dr William Winter, a chemistry professor and director of the Cellulose Research Institute at the Suny College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) at New York State University. “And in the end, in a landfill, it’s just carbon dioxide and water, which can be taken up and made into more biomass.”
In addition to being used as strengtheners in plastics, the nanocrystals can be used in ceramics and in biomedical applications such as artificial joints and disposable medical equipment. Using cellulosic nanocrystals to strengthen plastics has advantages over the glass that is often used: Glass is heavier, harder on processing machinery and therefore more expensive to work with and it stays in the ground for centuries.
Nanocrystalline cellulose can be made out of virtually any plant material, ranging from trees and willow shrubs to orange pulp and the pomace left behind after apple cider production. Wood-based products have the advantage over these other materials of having much higher cellulose levels -- between 40 to 50 per cent, versus 25 to 30 per cent.
Sources: CBC News, Nanowerk News