Tag Archives: Paper and Fibre Institute

Paper and Fibre Research Institute holds nanocellulose party/seminar

My ears always prick up when I come across a nanocellulose story and this Sept. 26, 2012 news item on Nanowerk features a nanocellulose seminar hosted by the Paper and Fibre Institute (PFI) in Norway (Note: I have removed a link),

PFI has the pleasure to organize the 4th research seminar about cellulose and their nanomaterials. The seminar will take place at PFI in Norway, on November 14-15, 2012. This will be a follow-up of the successful seminars in Trondheim 2006, 2008, 2010. The seminar offers an excellent scientific program, including topics which reflect the most recent advances from basic research to practical applications.

During the last years it has been considerable interest in cellulose nanofibrils [emphasis mine] due to the wide range of potential areas of application. This includes replacement for plastics, reinforcement of composite materials, boosting paper properties, barrier material in packaging and bio-medical applications.

As per the term I highlighted, cellulose nanofibrils, KarenS very kindly dropped by my Aug. 2, 2012 posting on nanocellulose research to explain some of the terminology that gets tossed around,

From my understanding, nanocrystaline cellulose (NCC), cellulose nanocrystals (CNC), cellulose whiskers (CW) and cellulose nanowhiskers (CNW) are all the same stuff: cylindrical rods of crystalline cellulose (diameter: 5-10 nm; length: 20-1000 nm). Cellulose nanofibers or nanofibrils (CNF), on the contrary, are less crystalline and are in the form of long fibers (diameter: 20-50 nm; length: up to several micrometers).

There is still a lot of confusion on the nomenclature of cellulose nanoparticles, but nice explanations (and pictures!) are given here (and also in other papers from the same [TAPPI 2012 in Montréal] conference):

http://www.tappi.org/Downloads/Conference-Papers/2012/12NANO/12NANO49.aspx

Thank you KarenS, I really appreciate the clarification and the link to additional information.

Back to the main event, I went to the webpage for the 4th research seminar about cellulose and their nanomaterials and found a listing of the speakers,

Tsuguyuki Saito (University of Tokyo):  “Material Properties of TEMPO-Oxidized Cellulose Nanofibrils: In bulk and Individual Forms”
Lars Berglund (KTH): “Unexplored materials property space – does nanofibrillated cellulose provide new possibilities?”
Michel Schenker (Omya): “Toward Nano-fibrillated Pigmented Cellulose Composites”
Anette Hejnesson-Hulten (Eka):  “Chemically Pretreated  MFC – Process, Manufacturing and Application”
Kriistina Oksman (Luleå Univ.of Techn): “Nanocelluloses extracted from  bio residues and their use in composites”
J.M. Lagaron (CSIC): “Nanocellulose as a reinforcing material in packaging films”
Tomas Larsson (Innventia): “Determining the specific surface area of NFC by CP/MAS 13C-NMR”
Tekla Tammelin, (VTT): “Dense NFC films with several opportunities for additional functionalities”
Kristin Syverud (PFI): “A biocompatibility study of microfibrillated cellulose”
Øyvind Gregersen (NTNU): “The effect of microfibrillated cellulose on the pressability and paper properties of TMP and ground calcium carbonate (GCC) based sheets”
Gary Chinga Carrasco (PFI): “Characterization of the fibrillation degree of various MFC materials and its implication on critical properties”
Marianne Lenes (PFI): “MFC as barrier material – possibilities and challenges”
Laura Alexandrescu (NTNU): “MFC filters for environmental particle filtration”
Per Stenius (NTNU): “Nanofibrils – do they fulfill the promises?”

Dag Høvik (Research Council of Norway): “Strategic research programmes within Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials in Norway, 2002-2021”.

Interestingly given our work in this field, there don’t seem to be any Canadians on the speaker list.  I imagine that this is largely due to the fact that they have healthy and active research community in Norway and this is not really an international affair.