Tag Archives: agricultural waste

Nanocellulose from pineapple waste for soil-saving desert agriculture

Leave a reply

The last time I had a pineapple and nanocellulose story it was from Brazil (see my March 28, 2011 posting). This September 23, 2025 news item in Nanowerk describes some more recent research, Note: Links have been removed,

Food waste has long been a global challenge, but a new study shows it may also be part of the solution to desertification. Published in the Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts (“Evaluating Nanocellulose from Food Waste as A Functional Amendment for Sandy Soils: Linking Fiber Structure to Water Dynamics, Soil Mechanics, and Plant-Microbes Interactions”), the research demonstrates how pineapple peels, typically discarded in large quantities by the juice and hospitality industries, can be transformed into nanocellulose fibers that dramatically improve the properties of sandy soils.

…

Caption: Study shows food waste-derived nanocellulose boosts sandy soil water retention, nutrient storage, and plant survival in arid regions Credit: Department of Chemical Engineering, Khalifa University of Science & Technology, Abu Dhabi 127788, United Arab Emirates

A September 22, 2025 Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts (?) press release on EurekAlert, which originated the news item, provides more detail,

Led by an international team of scientists, the study focused on converting pineapple peels into fibers through mechanochemical treatments including shredding, alkali processing, bleaching, and ball milling. The resulting fibers, ranging from macro to nanoscale, were then tested in three types of desert sands commonly found in the United Arab Emirates: lithic, quartz-rich, and calcareous sands.

The results were striking. Soils amended with nanocellulose fibers exhibited up to 32.7% greater water-holding capacity and a 58% reduction in permeability compared to untreated sand. Evaporation rates slowed by over half, while soil cohesion and compressive strength improved four-fold in some cases. Importantly, nutrient retention also increased, with phosphorus retention nearly doubling in fiber-treated sands.

Plant growth experiments using cherry tomato seedlings further validated the amendments’ benefits. At moderate concentrations (0.25–1% fiber by weight), plants showed higher survival rates, more leaves, and healthier development compared to controls. However, excessive fiber content (3%) reduced survival, underscoring the need for optimized application levels.

Beyond agricultural performance, the study also assessed the biodegradation of fiber-reinforced soils. While compost-rich environments promoted microbial activity, nanocellulose fibers in sandy soils remained structurally stable, indicating their durability under arid conditions. This resilience could ensure long-term benefits for desert agriculture.

The findings align with broader circular bioeconomy goals, suggesting that food waste can be repurposed into high-value agricultural inputs rather than ending up in landfills. With the Middle East and North Africa importing more food than they produce, the approach offers a sustainable way to recycle organic residues into resources for local farming.

By linking fiber structure to soil mechanics, water dynamics, and plant-microbe interactions, the research provides a roadmap for restoring desert soils and improving food security in arid climates. As the authors note, future work should refine soil-water retention models and explore scaling the process to integrate other agricultural by-products, paving the way for broader adoption in sustainable land management.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Evaluating nanocellulose from food waste as a functional amendment for sandy soils: Linking fiber structure to water dynamics, soil mechanics, and plant-microbes interactions by M-Haidar Ali Dali, Mohamed Hamid Salim, Malak AbuZaid, Maryam Omar Subhi Qassem , Faisal Al Marzooqi, Andrea Ceriani, Alessandro Decarlis, Ludovic Francis Dumée, Blaise Leopold Tardy. Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts Volume 10, Issue 4, November 2025, Pages 513-529 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobab.2025.09.003 Available online 20 September 2025, Version of Record 21 November 2025

This paper is open access.

Agricultural waste for clothes of the future

Leave a reply

A June 17, 2025 Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden) press release (also on EurekAlert) announces research into extracting cellulose from agricultural waste for future use in textiles, Note: A link has been removed,

Cellulose-based textile material can make the clothing sector more sustainable. Currently, cellulose-based textiles are mainly made from wood, but a study headed by researchers from Chalmers University of Technology points to the possibility of using agricultural waste from wheat and oat. The method is easier and requires fewer chemicals than manufacturing forest-based cellulose, and can enhance the value of waste products from agriculture.

Making clothing from water-intensive cotton has a major impact on the climate. That’s why cellulose from other raw materials has come into focus in recent years as a more resource-smart method of textile production. Up to now, the efforts have concentrated on wood-based cellulose. But in a recently published study, researchers investigated a different path for cellulose fibre manufacture, by using waste products from agriculture, which Sweden has a lot of.

The researchers tested oat husks, wheat straw, potato pulp and sugar beet pulp. Oat husks and wheat straw turned out to work best to develop a pulp, called dissolving pulp, which is used to make clothing.

“With this method, which we further developed in this study, we show that you can make textile pulp from certain agricultural waste products,” says Diana Bernin, Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Chalmers and senior researcher in the study. “This is an important step towards being able to create textiles from waste products instead of using cotton, which isn’t climate-friendly, or wood, a material that we want to use for so many things while also needing to preserve it for the benefit of the climate.”

More sustainable manufacturing with lye

The team used soda pulping as one part of the process. This means that the raw material is boiled in lye, which makes manufacturing more sustainable.

“Lye doesn’t contain any toxins or substances that impact nature,” she explains. “Soda pulping doesn’t work for wood fibres, so making textile pulp from wheat straw and oat husks requires fewer chemicals than making forest-based cellulose. It’s also a simpler procedure, in part because it doesn’t require processing such as chipping and debarking. In addition, it increases the economic value of oats and wheat, when leftovers from their production can be used as raw materials for cellulose extraction.”

Bernin says it is likely that several other agricultural waste products can be used for textile manufacture using the method her team developed. She is currently involved in an international project that has found, using the method in this study, that press-cake from grass from fields works very well to create dissolving pulp.

In continued studies that have yet to be published, the researchers have also taken another step towards practical application of the dissolving pulps, creating textile fibres based on pulp from wheat and the press-cake from grass.

Hope of using existing industries

In the long run, she sees good opportunities to use the pulp-and-paper industry, which already has technology and processes in place, to make dissolving pulp from agricultural waste.

“If we can make use of our existing industry and adjust their processes instead of building new production facilities, we’ve already come a long way,” she says.

The lead author of the study is Joanna Wojtasz, former postdoc at Chalmers and now a researcher at the innovation company Tree To Textile [TreeToTextile], which is one of the partners in the project.

“The study shows that there is a lot of potential in agricultural waste,” Wojtasz says. “We really shouldn’t disregard the opportunity to use this type of cellulose streams for our future clothing.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Producing dissolving pulp from agricultural waste by Joanna Wojtasz, Niclas Sjöstedt, Benjamin Storm, Manuel Mammen Parayil, Amanda Ulefors, Linnea Nilsson, Maria Alejandra Hernández Leal, Anne Michud, Åsa Östlund, Tomas Rydbergb and Diana Bernin. RSC Sustainability, 2025,3, 2210-2220 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D4SU00534A First published 21 Mar 2025

This paper is open access.

Nanocellulose: a cow dung story

Leave a reply

Canadian nanocellulose efforts are usually focused on its extraction from wood. Other countries have often focused on extraction from various fruits and vegetables. Cow dung or cow manure as a source is a first for this blog.

A May 7, 2025 news item on ScienceDaily announces nanocellulose extraction from cow manure,

A new technique to extract tiny cellulose strands from cow dung and turn them into manufacturing-grade cellulose, currently used to make everything from surgical masks to food packaging, has been developed by researchers from UCL [University College London] and Edinburgh Napier University.

The study, published in The Journal of Cleaner Production, describes the new ‘pressurised spinning’ innovation and its potential to create cellulose materials more cheaply and cleanly than some current manufacturing methods, using a waste product from the dairy farming industry, cow dung, as the raw material.

…

A May 7, 2025 University College London (UCL) press release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, provides more information and a pun in the headline,

Feat of ‘dung-gineering’ turns cow manure into one of world’s most used materials

…

The advance is the first time that manufacturing-grade cellulose has been derived from animal waste and is a prime example of circular economy, which aims to minimise waste and pollution by reusing and repurposing resources wherever possible.

The researchers say that implementing the technology would be a win-win situation for manufacturers, dairy farmers and the environment.

Cellulose is one of the world’s most commonly used manufacturing materials. Found naturally in the cell walls of plants, it was first used to create synthetic materials in the mid-19th century, including the original material used in photographic film, celluloid.

Today it can be found in everything from cling film to surgical masks, paper products, textiles, foods and pharmaceuticals. Though it can be extracted organically, it is also often produced synthetically using toxic chemicals.

Pressurised spinning (or pressurised gyration) is a manufacturing technology that uses the forces of pressure and rotation simultaneously to spin fibres, beads, ribbons, meshes and films from a liquid jet of soft matter. The multiple award-winning technology was invented in 2013 by a team from UCL Mechanical Engineering led by Professor Mohan Edirisinghe.

Professor Edirisinghe, the senior author of the study, said: “Our initial question was whether it could be possible to extract the tiny fragments of cellulose present in cow manure, which is left over from the plants the animals have eaten, and fashion it into manufacturing-grade cellulose materials.

“Extracting the fragments from dung was relatively straightforward using mild chemical reactions and homogenisation, which we then turned into a liquid solution. But when we tried to turn the fragments into fibres using pressurised spinning technology, it didn’t work.

“By a process of trial and error, we figured out that using a horizontal rather than a vertical vessel containing surface nozzles and injecting the jet of liquid into still or flowing water caused cellulose fibres to form. We were then able to change the consistency of the liquid to create other forms, such as meshes, films and ribbons, each of which have different manufacturing applications.

“We’re still not quite sure why the process works, but the important thing is that it does. It will also be fairly easy to scale up using existing pressurised spinning technology, the vessels for which were designed and built in the UCL Mechanical Engineering workshop.”

The new technique, called horizontal nozzle-pressurised spinning, is an energy efficient process that doesn’t require the high voltages of other fibre production techniques such as electrospinning.

The team say that adapting existing pressurised spinning machines to the new process should be relatively straightforward. The greater challenge is likely to be the logistics of sourcing and transporting the raw material, cow dung, but that the environmental and commercial benefits of doing so would be significant.

Ms Yanqi Dai, first author of the study from UCL Mechanical Engineering, said: “Dairy farm waste such as cow manure is a threat to the environment and humans, especially through waterway pollution, the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when it decomposes, and the spread of pathogens. It is also often a burden on farmers to dispose of properly.

“Horizontal nozzle-pressurised spinning could be a huge boost to the global dairy farming industry, by putting this problematic waste product to good use and perhaps creating a new source of income.”

The research team is currently seeking opportunities to work with dairy farmers to take advantage of the technology and scale it up.

Animal waste is a growing problem globally. Research in 2019 estimated that the amount of animal waste is due to increase by 40% between 2003 and 2030 to at least five billion tons, with many farms producing more manure than they can legitimately use as fertiliser. This waste often finds its way into water, where it can have a devastating effect on ecosystems and even lead to disease in humans.

Core pressurised spinning research at UCL was made possible by grants awarded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

I have two links to the paper and a citation for it,

Harnessing cow manure waste for nanocellulose extraction and sustainable small-structure manufacturing (PDF) or journal by Yanqi Dai Dongyang Sun, Dominic O’Rourke, Sasireka Velusamy, Senthilarasu Sundaram, Mohan Edirisinghe. Journal of Cleaner Production Volume 509, 1 June 2025, 145530 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2025.145530 Creative Commons Licence: CC BY 4.0

This paper is open access.