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Cellulosic nanomaterials in automobile parts and a CelluForce update

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The race to find applications for cellulosic nanomaterials continues apace. The latest entrant is from Clemson University in South Carolina (US). From a July 27, 2016 news item on Nanowerk,

Trees that are removed during forest restoration projects could find their way into car bumpers and fenders as part of a study led by Srikanth Pilla of Clemson University.

Pilla is collaborating on the study with researchers from the USDA Forest Service’s Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin.

The Madison researchers are converting some of those trees into liquid suspensions of tiny rod-like structures with diameters 20,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. Pilla is using these tiny structures, known as cellulosic nanomaterials, to develop new composite materials that could be shaped into automotive parts with improved strength.

The auto parts would also be biorenewable, which means they could go to a composting facility instead of a landfill when their time on the road is done. The research could help automakers meet automotive recycling regulations that have been adopted in Europe and could be on the way to the United States.

Pilla, an assistant professor in the Department of Automotive Engineering at Clemson University, wants to use the composite materials he is creating to make bumpers and fenders that will be less likely to distort or break on impact.

“They will absorb the energy and just stay intact,” he said. “You won’t have to replace them because there will be no damage at all. Parts made with current materials might resist one impact. These will resist three or four impacts.”

A July 27, 2016 Clemson University media release, which originated the news item, describes the project and the reason for the support provides an interesting view of the politics behind the science (Note: A link has been removed),

The U.S. Department of the Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture is funding the $481,000 research project for five years. Pilla’s research will be based out of the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research in Greenville, South Carolina.

Craig Clemons, a materials research engineer at the Forest Products Laboratory and co-principal investigator on the project, said that the Forest Service wants to find large-volume uses for cellulosic nanomaterials.

“We find appropriate outlets for all kinds of forest-derived materials,” he said. “In this case, it’s cellulosic nanomaterials. We’re trying to move up the value chain with the cellulosic nanomaterials, creating high-value products out of what could otherwise be low-value wood. We’ll be producing the cellulosic nanomaterials, which are the most fundamental structural elements that you can get out of wood and pulp fibers. We’ll also be lending our more than 25 years of experience in creating composites from plastics and wood-derived materials to the project.”

The research is environmentally friendly from start to finish.

The cellulosic nanomaterials could come from trees that are removed during forest restoration projects. Removing this material from the forests helps prevent large, catastrophic wildfires. Researchers will have no need to cut down healthy trees that could be used for other purposes, Pilla said.

Ted Wegner, assistant director at the Forest Products Laboratory, said, “The use of cellulosic nanomaterials will help meet the needs of people for sustainable, renewable and lightweight products while helping to improve the health and condition of America’s forests. The United States possesses abundant forest resources and the infrastructure to support a large cellulosic nanomaterials industry. Commercialization of cellulosic nanomaterials has the potential to create jobs, especially in rural America.”

One of the technical challenges Pilla and Clemons face in their work is combining the water-friendly cellulosic nanomaterials with the water-unfriendly polymers. They will need to show that the material can be mass produced because automakers need to make thousands of parts.

“We will use supercritical fluid as a plasticizer, allowing the nanoreinforcements to disperse through the polymer,” Pilla said. “We can help develop a conventional technique that will be scalable in the automotive sector.”

Robert Jones, executive vice president for academic affairs and provost at Clemson, congratulated Pilla on the research, which touches on Jones’ area of expertise.

Jones has a bachelor’s in forest management, a master’s in forestry from Clemson and a doctorate in forest ecology from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse University.

“The research that Srikanth Pilla is doing with the USDA Forest Service is a creative way of using what might otherwise be a low-value wood product to strengthen automobile parts,” Jones said. “It’s even better that these parts are biorenewable. The research is good for the Earth in more ways than one.”

This research could grow in importance if the United States were to follow the European Union’s lead in setting requirements on how much of a vehicle must be recovered and recycled after it has seen its last mile on the road.

“In the U.S., such legislation is not yet here,” Pilla said. “But it could make its way here, too.”

Pilla is quickly establishing himself as a leading expert in making next-generation automotive parts. He won the 2016 Robert J. Hocken Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award from the nonprofit student and professional organization SME.

Pilla is nearing the end of the first year of a separate $5.81-million, five-year grant from the Department of Energy. As part of that research, Pilla and his team are developing ultra-lightweight doors expected to help automakers in their race to meet federal fuel economy standards.

Zoran Filipi, chair of Clemson’s automotive engineering, said that Pilla is playing a key role in making Clemson the premiere place for automotive research.

“Dr. Pilla is doing research that helps Clemson and the auto industry stay a step ahead,” Filipi said. “He is anticipating needs automakers will face in the future and seeking solutions that could be put into place very quickly. His research with the USDA Forest Service is another example of that.”

Congratulations also came from Anand Gramopadhye, dean of Clemson’s College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences.

“Dr. Pilla’s work continues to have an impact on automotive engineering, especially in the area of manufacturing,” Gramopadhye said. “His innovations are positioning Clemson, the state, and the nation for strength into the future.”

This search for applications is a worldwide competition. Cellulose is one of the most abundant materials on earth and can be derived from carrots, bananas, pineapples, and more. It just so happens that much of the research in the northern hemisphere focuses on cellulose derived from trees in an attempt to prop up or reinvigorate the failing forest products industry.

In Canada we have three production facilities for cellulosic nanomaterials. There’s a plant in Alberta (I’ve never seen a name for it), CelluForce in Windsor, Québec, and Blue Goose Biorefineries in Saskatchewan. I believe Blue Goose derives their cellulosic *nanomaterials* from trees and other plant materials while the Alberta and CelluForce plants use trees only.

CelluForce Update

CelluForce represents a big investment by the Canadian federal government. The other companies and production facilities have received federal funds but my understanding is that CelluForce has enjoyed significantly more. As well, the company has had a stockpile of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) that I first mentioned here in an Oct. 3, 2013 post (scroll down about 75% of the way). A June 8, 2016 CelluForce news release provides more information about CelluForce activities and its stockpile,

  •  In the first half of 2016, Cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) shipments to industrial partners have reached their highest level since company inception.
  • Recent application developments in the oil & gas, the electronics and plastics sectors are expected to lead to commercial sales towards year end.
  • New website to enhance understanding of CelluForce NCCTM core properties and scope of performance in industrial applications is launched.

Montreal, Québec – June 8th 2016 – CelluForce, a clean technology company, is seeing growing interest in its innovative green chemistry product called cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) and has recorded, over the first half of 2016, the largest CNC shipment volumes since the company’s inception.

“Over the past year, we have been actively developing several industry-specific applications featuring CelluForce NCCTM, a form of cellulose nanocrystals which is produced in our Windsor plant.   Three of these applications have now reached a high level of technical and commercial maturity and have been proven to provide cost benefits and sustained performance in the oil & gas, electronics and plastics segments,” said Sebastien Corbeil [emphasis mine], President and CEO of CelluForce. “Our product development teams are extremely pleased to see CelluForce NCCTM [nanocrystalline cellulose; this is a trade name for CNC] now being used in full scale trials for final customer acceptance tests”.

With the current shipment volumes forecast, the company expects to deplete its CelluForce NCCTM inventory by mid-2017 [emphasis mine]. The inventory depletion will pave the way for the company to start commercial production of CNC at its Windsor plant next year.

CelluForce has built a strong network of researchers with academic and industrial partners and continues to invest time and resources to develop, refine and expand applications for CNC in key priority industrial markets. Beyond oil & gas, electronics and plastics, some of these markets are adhesives, cement, paints and coatings, as well as personal and healthcare.

Furthermore, as it progressively prepares for commercial production, CelluForce has revamped its digital platform and presence, with the underlying objective of developing a better understanding of its product, applications and its innovative green technology capabilities.  Its new brand image is meant to convey the innovative, versatile and sustainable properties of CNC.

Nice to see that there is sufficient demand that the stockpile can be eliminated soon. In my last piece about CelluForce (a March 30, 2015 post), I noted an interim president, René Goguen. An April 27, 2015 CelluForce news release announced Sebastien Corbeil’s then new appointment as company president.

One final note, nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) was the generic name coined by Canadian scientists for a specific cellulose nanomaterial. Over time, cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) became the preferred term for the generic material and CelluForce decided to trademark NCC (nanocrystalline cellulose) as their commercial brand name for cellulose nanocrystals.

*Added *nanomaterials* after the adjective, cellulosic, on March 31, 2023.

CelluForce celebrates a new investor but gives no details about research or applications

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The most one can gather from the news item/press release is that CelluForce is researching applications in the oil and gas sector and that they’re very happy to receive money although there’s no indication as to how much. From a March 26, 2015 news item on Azonano,

CelluForce is pleased to announce an investment into the company by Schlumberger, the world’s leading supplier of technology, integrated project management and information solutions for the global oil and gas industry.

CelluForce’s March 25, 2015 press release does go on but there are no more details to be had,

This investment furthers the collaboration between CelluForce and Schlumberger to explore the use of CelluForce’s wood-derived nano-crystalline cellulose (CelluForce NCCTM) to enhance the productivity of oil and gas wells.

“We are very proud to be expanding our partnership with Schlumberger, the world’s leading oil and gas service company”, stated René Goguen, Acting President of CelluForce. “We have always believed that NCC applications hold promise extending far beyond the forest sector, and we see this investment from an international company as respected as Schlumberger as confirmation of this belief.”

NCC is a fundamental building block of trees that can be extracted from the forest biomass and has unique properties that offer a wide range of potential applications. Measured in units as small as nanometres, these tiny structures have strength properties comparable to steel and will have uses in a variety of industrial sectors.

The first small-scale NCC pilot plant was built and began operation in 2006 at FPInnovations’ laboratory in Montréal, Québec. Supported in part by Natural Resources Canada and the Ministère de l’Énergie et des Ressources naturelles du Québec, the pilot plant operation led to a scalable NCC production process and placed Canada in the pole position of the global race towards commercial NCC manufacture. Based on the success of the small-scale pilot plant, CelluForce, a joint venture of Domtar and FPInnovations, was created which led to the construction of a demonstration plant at Domtar’s mill in Windsor, Québec, having a production capacity of 1000 kg of NCC per day.

This announcement follows the recent announcement by the Honourable Greg Rickford, Minister of Natural Resources, of a $4.0 million contribution by Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) to optimize the extraction process of NCC from dry wood pulp and develop applications for its use in the oil and gas sector.

The $4M Canadian federal government investment was mentioned in my Feb. 19, 2015 post (scroll down about 40% of the way).

I get the feeling CelluForce is trying to recover from a setback and I wonder if it has anything to do with their production facility’s stockpile of NCC (aka, CNC or cellulose nanocrystals), first mentioned here in an Oct. 3, 2013 post. There was much fanfare about producing NCC/CNC but there was and is no substantive demand for the material in Canada or anywhere else globally.

Canada has three facilities that produce CNC (CelluForce being the largest) and there are production facilities in other countries. To date, there is no major application for CNC but given its properties, there is substantive research into how it could be commercialized. My Nov. 25, 2014 post covers a recent US report about commercializing nanocellulosic materials, including CNC.

I hope that CelluForce is able to overcome whatever problems it seems to be experiencing. Certainly, investments such as Schlumberger’s hint at the possibility. I wish the management team good luck.

Cellulose nanocrystals (CNC), also known as nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC), and toxicity; some Celluforce news; anti-petroleum extremists

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The February 2015 issue of Industrial Biotechnology is hosting a special in depth research section on the topic of cellulose nanotechnology. A Feb. 19, 2015 news item on Phys.org features a specific article in the special section (Note: A link has been removed),

Novel nanomaterials derived from cellulose have many promising industrial applications, are biobased and biodegradable, and can be produced at relatively low cost. Their potential toxicity—whether ingested, inhaled, on contact with the skin, or on exposure to cells within the body—is a topic of intense discussion, and the latest evidence and insights on cellulose nanocrystal toxicity are presented in a Review article in Industrial Biotechnology.

Maren Roman, PhD, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, describes the preparation of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) and highlights the key factors that are an essential part of studies to assess the potential adverse health effects of CNCs by various types of exposure. In the article “Toxicity of Cellulose Nanocrystals: A Review” , Dr. Roman discusses the current literature on the pulmonary, oral, dermal, and cytotoxicity of CNCs, provides an in-depth view on their effects on human health, and suggests areas for future research.

There has been much Canadian investment both federal and provincial in cellulose nanocrystals (CNC). There’s also been a fair degree of confusion regarding the name. In Canada, which was a research leader initially, it was called nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) but over time a new term was coined cellulose nanocrystals (CNC). The new name was more in keeping with the naming conventions for other nanoscale cellulose materials such as  cellulose nanofibrils, etc. Hopefully, this confusion will resolve itself now that Celluforce, a Canadian company, has trademarked NCC. (More about Celluforce later in this post.)

Getting back to toxicity and CNC, here’s a link to and a citation for Maron’s research paper,

Toxicity of Cellulose Nanocrystals: A Review by Roman Maren. Industrial Biotechnology. February 2015, 11(1): 25-33. doi:10.1089/ind.2014.0024.

The article is open access at this time. For anyone who doesn’t have the time to read it, here’s the conclusion,

Current studies of the oral and dermal toxicity of CNCs have shown a lack of adverse health effects. The available studies, however, are still very limited in number (two oral toxicity studies and three dermal toxicity studies) and in the variety of tested CNC materials (CelluForce’s NCC). Additional oral and dermal toxicity studies are needed to support the general conclusion that CNCs are nontoxic upon ingestion or contact with the skin. Studies of pulmonary and cytotoxicity, on the other hand, have yielded discordant results. The questions of whether CNCs have adverse health effects on inhalation and whether they elicit inflammatory or oxidative stress responses at the cellular level therefore warrant further investigation. The toxicity of CNCs will depend strongly on their physicochemical properties—in particular, surface chemistry, including particle charge, and degree of aggregation, which determines particle shape and dimensions. Therefore, these properties—which in turn depend strongly on the cellulose source, CNC preparation procedure, and post-processing or sample preparation methods, such as lyophilization, aerosolization, sonication, or sterilization—need to be carefully measured in the final samples.

Another factor that might affect the outcomes of toxicity studies are sample contaminants, such as endotoxins or toxic chemical impurities. Samples for exposure tests should therefore be carefully analyzed for such contaminants prior to testing. Ideally, because detection of toxic chemical contaminants may be difficult, control experiments should be carried out with suitable blanks from which the CNCs have been removed, for example by membrane filtration. Moreover, especially in cytotoxicity assessments, the effect of CNCs on pH and their aggregation in the cell culture medium need to be monitored. Only by careful particle characterization and exclusion of interfering factors will we be able to develop a detailed understanding of the potential adverse health effects of CNCs.

If I understand this rightly, CNC seems safe (more or less) when ingested orally (food/drink) or applied to the skin (dermal application) but inhalation seems problematic and there are indications that this could lead to inflammation of lung cells. Other conclusions suggest both the source for the cellulose and CNC preparation may affect its toxicity. I encourage you to read the whole research paper as this author provides good explanations of the terms and summaries of previous research, as well as, some very well considered research.

Here’s more about Industrial Biotechnology’s special research section in the February 2015 issue, from a Feb. 19, 2015 Mary Ann Liebert publishers press release (also on EurekAlert*),

The article is part of an IB IN DEPTH special research section entitled “Cellulose Nanotechnology: Fundamentals and Applications,” led by Guest Editors Jose Moran-Mirabal, PhD and Emily Cranston, PhD, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada. In addition to the Review article by Dr. Roman, the issue includes Reviews by M. Rose, M. Babi, and J. Moran-Mirabal (“The Study of Cellulose Structure and Depolymerization Through Single-Molecule Methods”) and by X.F. Zhao and W.T. Winter (“Cellulose/cellulose-based nanospheres: Perspectives and prospective”); Original Research articles by A. Rivkin, T. Abitbol, Y. Nevo, et al. (“Bionanocomposite films from resilin-CBD bound to cellulose nanocrystals), and P. Criado, C. Fraschini, S. Salmieri, et al. (“Evaluation of antioxidant cellulose nanocrystals and applications in gellan gum films”); and the Overview article “Cellulose Nanotechnology on the Rise,” by Drs. Moran-Mirabal and Cranston.

Meanwhile Celluforce announces a $4M ‘contribution’ from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), from a Feb. 16, 2015 Celluforce news release,

CelluForce welcomes the announcement by Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) of a contribution of $4.0 million to optimize the extraction process of Nanocrystaline Cellulose (NCC) from dry wood pulp and develop applications for its use in the oil and gas sector. The announcement was made in Quebec City today [Feb. 16, 2015] by the Honourable Greg Rickford, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario.

NCC is a fundamental building block of trees that can be extracted from the forest biomass and has unique properties that offer a wide range of potential applications. Measured in units as small as nanometres, these tiny structures have strength properties comparable to steel and will have uses in a variety of industrial sectors. In particular, NCC is touted as having the potential to significantly advance the oil and gas industry.

“Our Government is positioning Canada as a global leader in the clean technology sector by supporting innovative projects aimed at growing our economy while contributing to a cleaner environment,” said the Honourable Greg Rickford, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources. [emphasis mine] “By developing our resources responsibly, exploring next-generation transportation and advancing clean energy technology, the projects announced today will create jobs and improve innovation opportunities in Quebec and across Canada.”

“World-class research led to the development of this ground breaking extraction process and placed Canada at the leading edge of NCC research”, stated René Goguen, Acting President of CelluForce Inc. “This announcement by SDTC sets the stage for the pre-commercial development of applications that will not only support Canada’s forest sector but also the oil and gas sector, both of which are important drivers of the Canadian economy.”

This project will further improve and optimize the process developed by CelluForce to extract nanocrystalline cellulose (CelluForce NCC™) from dry wood pulp. In addition to improving the extraction process, this project will investigate additional applications for the oil-and-gas industry such as cementing using this renewable forestry resource.

There’s very little information in this news release other than the fact that CelluForce’s $4M doesn’t need to be repaid seeing it’s described as a ‘contribution’ rather than an investment. The difference between a contribution and a grant, which is what these funds used to be called, somewhat mystifies me unless this is a translation issue.

As for the news release content, it is remarkably scant. This $4M will be spent on improving the extraction process and on applications for the oil and gas industry. Neither the improvements nor the possible applications are described. Hopefully, the government has some means of establishing whether or not those funds (sorry, the contribution) were used for the purposes described.

I am glad to see this in this news release, “Our Government is positioning Canada as a global leader in the clean technology sector …” although I’m not sure how it fits with recent attempts to brand environmentalists as part of an ‘anti-petroleum’ movement as described in a Feb. 19, 2015 post by Glyn Moody for Techdirt (Note: A link has been removed),

As Techdirt has been warning for some time, one of the dangers with the flood of “anti-terrorist” laws and powers is that they are easily redirected against other groups for very different purposes. A story in the Globe and Mail provides another chilling reminder of how that works:

The RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] has labelled the “anti-petroleum” movement as a growing and violent threat to Canada’s security, raising fears among environmentalists that they face increased surveillance, and possibly worse, under the Harper government’s new terrorism legislation.

As the Globe and Mail article makes clear, environmentalists are now being considered as part of an “anti-petroleum” movement. That’s not just some irrelevant rebranding: it means that new legislation supposedly targeting “terrorism” can be applied.

…

It seems logically incoherent to me that the government wants clean tech while condemning environmentalists. Whether or not you buy climate change science (for the record, I do), you have to admit that we are running out of petroleum. At heart, both the government and the environmentalists have to agree that we need new sources for fuel. It doesn’t make any sense to spend valuable money, time, and resources on pursuing environmentalists.

This business about the ‘anti-petroleum’ movement reminds me of a copyright kerfuffle including James Moore, currently the Minister of Industry, and writer Cory Doctorow. Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage at the time, at some sort of public event, labeled Doctorow as a ‘radical extremist’ regarding his (Doctorow’s) views on copyright. The comments achieved notoriety when it appeared that Moore and the organizers denied the comments ever took place. The organizers seemed to have edited the offending video and Moore made public denials. You can read more about the incident in my June 25, 2010 post. Here’s an excerpt from the post which may explain why I feel there is a similarity,

… By simultaneously linking individuals who use violence to achieve their ends (the usual application for the term ‘radical extremists’) to individuals who are debating, discussing, and writing commentaries critical of your political aims you render the term into a joke and you minimize the violence associated with it.

Although with ‘anti-petroleum’, it seems they could decide any dissension is a form of violence. It should be noted that in Canada the Ministry of Industry, is tightly coupled with the Ministry of Natural Resources since the Canadian economy has been and continues to be largely resource-based.

For anyone interested in CelluForce and NCC/CNC, here’s a sampling of my previous posts on the topic,

CelluForce (nanocrystalline cellulose) plant opens (Dec. 15, 2011)

Double honours for NCC (ArboraNano and CelluForce recognized) (May 25, 2012)

You say nanocrystalline cellulose, I say cellulose nanocrystals; CelluForce at Japan conference and at UK conference (Oct. 15, 2012)

Designing nanocellulose (?) products in Finland; update on Canada’s CelluForce (Oct. 3, 2013) Note: CelluForce stopped producing NCC due to a growing stockpile.

There’s a lot more about CNC on this blog* should you care to search. One final note, I gather there’s a new interim boss at CelluForce, René Goguen replacing Jean Moreau.

* EurekAlert link added Feb. 20, 2015.

* ‘on the CNC blog’ changed to ‘about CNC on this blog’ on March 4, 2015.