Utilization of local residues for nanocelullose production and its impact on paper properties

Why did I choose this dissertation topic, what is it about, and why the hell chemistry?

Well, firstly, an opportunity to study PhD was not my first choice, to be honest. While finishing my master's degree, I have been offered to work for a small company. But eventually, it didn’t work out, so I had to find out, what to do next. Fortunately, for a longer period, I also worked at the faculty as a young scientist. So, I realized, it is not so bad idea to push it a little bit further. I started to discuss my possibilities to work on something interesting with my future colleagues.

Why did I mention that job offer first? Well, I was a little bit disappointed firstly, cause that job didn’t work out. But still, I was in contact with those people who were somehow connected to the paper industry in general. And then I found out, I could do a PhD dissertation related to the paper industry and maybe eventually, everything could work perfectly. I can work partly for the paper industry while working on my dissertation topic!

By that time, I worked at a chemistry laboratory with my future supervisor Ing. Kateřina Hájková, Ph.D. She is a doctor of wood chemistry and then we tried to solve some interesting chemistry related topics. Since I have never had a problem with chemistry, we found out quickly, then this interdisciplinary topic between chemistry, the wood/paper industry, and bioeconomic could be a solution to this. So, we thought something about the emerging topic of nanocellulose would be sufficient to write about in the dissertation. Then we worked together the whole summer while working on regular wood chemistry stuff in the laboratory, and we were completing this topic together.

A little while after that, a great topic was done. Utilization of local raw materials (residues from agriculture or industry residues) for nanocellulose production and its impact on paper properties.

Actually, this topic is huge, and there is a lot to do. Firstly, we are going to select our lignocellulosic material for nanocellulose production. For this part, we will use a general chemistry approach to assess the chemical compounds of each material to select those materials that make sense to produce a nanocellulose from. Basically, it means, we will select those materials, that have more cellulose in them. So, we can work we a high abundance of this great material later on. So, this was one part of the materials selection. On the other hand, we are also trying to collaborate with some paper companies for the optimization of paper production. So here comes partly my contact from the past, that I wanted to work with. Those guys connected me with the right people and probably a huge thing will happen, we will collaborate with a paper company that is interested in our nanocellulose dissertation topic. This is big for me and the faculty as well, because it could partly finance my dissertation and also it is important in terms of industry utilization of my topic. It means that the industry is actually interested in this topic and that is a great sign. So, this was big for me.

After materials selection we need to optimize nanocellulose production with several chemical reactions that need to remain hidden in case, it will work. Even if we will be able to produce nanocellulose, then we need to assess its quality in comparison with commercial nanocellulose. If the quality is high enough, we will try to apply it sufficiently on paper products in general. The application and type of materials that could be used have high variability.

So that is it. I tried to get a brief introduction to my dissertation topic, a little bit about me and how I did get here and why is it important to solve this dissertation. Hopefully, it was interesting enough to read it all. In the end, I tried to put some pictures to show you real science in picture 1. This picture shows how nanocellulose works on paper. Always between pictures a,c, and e,g, you can see the application of nanocellulose works on paper. It connects with imperfections on paper and with many chemical bonds it makes stronger paper. This is basically, how this is supposed to work 😊.

Sincerely,

Ing. Josef Bárta

Picture 1 — Nanocellulose application on paper scans (Barbash et al. 2020)

References:

[1] Barbash, V.A.; Yashchenko, O.V.; Gondovska, A.S.; Deykun, I.M. Preparation and characterization of nanocellulose obtained by TEMPO-mediated oxidation of organosolv pulp from reed stalks. Appl. Nanosci. 2022, 12, 835–848.