Pulp_VTT_Nano_Fiinland

Pulp:

Thinking small leads to BIG ideas in FinlandCustomer: VTT Location: Finland

Client: ANDRITZ AG

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Thinking small leads to BIG ideas in FinlandResearch to reduce cellulose to nanoparticles and then engineer these particles into fiber-based products is being conducted by a unique consortium in Finland. The results are more than promising – they could be game-changing for the pulp and paper industry. It all starts by thinking small. Very small.

Innovations in pulping

There may be a day in the not-too-distant future when the food you buy at the grocery will be bagged in a material that looks ex-actly like plastic, but is made of wood fiber. Biodegradable, sustainable wood fiber.

But first you have to get ready for a new vo-cabulary. In addition to “pulp” and “paper,” we now add “nanofibrillated cellulose” and “cellulose nanowhiskers.”

A “typical” cellulose fiber is about 30 mi-crometers wide and two-to-three millim-eters long. Nano fibers are about one one-thousandth the dimensions of a cellulose fiber. Actually, different grades of nanocel-lulose can be created (from microfibrillated down to nanowhiskers).

The North American research seems to focus more on the whiskers (nanocrys-tals) using chemical and hydrolysis pro-cesses (useful in coating for example). The European research focus in more on microfibers and nanofibers using mechani-cal and chemi-mechanical processes. The Japanese are also quite active.

Functional fiberWe are at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, near Helsinki, and we are talking with Pia Qvintus, Technology Manager for functional fiber products. “Our aim is to develop additional functionality for conventional fiber-based products such as paper and board,” she says. “To do this, we use new techniques for printing, or coat-

ing, or nanotechnology to expand the traditional applications for these products in a sustain-ability way.”

This is not esoteric re-search for the sake of research. “Yes, the pro-cessing and manufac-turing of products with nanotechnology some-times requires sophisti-cated production equipment, but the ma-chines we use are found in industry today,” Qvintus says. “We start by studying these materials in small laboratory scale and pilot plant settings, but our aim is to develop high-volume production methods that our industrial partners can take to market.

Some of the practical applications of VTT’s research are in the areas of construction, electronics, cosmetics, healthcare, and smart packaging. It is the packaging area that brought us to VTT today.

Plastic-like material from birch pulpIn a unique project spearheaded by VTT and Aalto University (VTT’s next-door neighbor at its campus in Espoo, Finland), and partnering with UPM, the consortium has developed a method which, for the first time, enables large-scale manufacturing of a wood-based material that has plastic-like properties – and then some.

“The end result is a fiber-based mate-rial that can be made in roll form, just like paper, and transparent, just like plastic,” Qvintus says. “The cellulose film is suitable for food packaging, for example, as it can be printed on and has excellent oxygen

SOME PRACTICAl ExAMPlES OF nanomaterIals today additives ▪ Stable thickener for cosmetics ▪ Emulsion stabilizer ▪ Additive to paints and resins ▪ Strength additive for construction

materials ▪ Enhanced oil recovery

Web structures ▪ Filler for paper and board

(can be increased up to 50%) ▪ Filler for printed electronics

substrates and conductors

thin film ▪ Barrier materials ▪ Packaging ▪ Organic pigments ▪ Smooth surfaces

Coating ▪ Thin layers (0.5-2 gsm)

“We start by studying these materials at lab scale, but our aim is to develop high-volume production methods.”Pia Qvintus

Technology Manager,

Functional Fibre Products,

VTT

barrier characteristics to protect the con-tents from spoiling.”

Qvintus is speaking of the unmodified na-nofilbrillated cellulose film here. By combin-ing it will well-known barrier materials and additives (live PVA or nanoclay) the film is resistant to high humidity as well.

UPM started pre-commerical production of Biofibrils (nano- and microfibrillated cellu-lose products) from pulp fiber in November 2011. “Our Biofibrils program is part of UPM’s Biofore strategy,” says says Esa laurinsilta, UPM’s Director of Biofibrils. “The main challenge in production is creat-ing these small particles that are uniform and consistent.”

major hurdle overcome“One of the hurdles we had to get over is that when water is added to nanofibrillated cellulose, a strong gel structure is imme-diately created,” Qvintus says. “While this is great for the concrete industry, it is not so great for film production. The bottleneck for industrial-scale manufacturing has been the requirement of pressurized filtration.”

(Name) (Title) of VTT with a roll of trans-

lucent packaging film produced from

nanofibrillated cellulose.

40 41

Thinking small leads to BIG ideas in FinlandResearch to reduce cellulose to nanoparticles and then engineer these particles into fiber-based products is being conducted by a unique consortium in Finland. The results are more than promising – they could be game-changing for the pulp and paper industry. It all starts by thinking small. Very small.


There may be a day in the not-too-distant future when the food you buy at the grocery will be bagged in a material that looks ex-actly like plastic, but is made of wood fiber. Biodegradable, sustainable wood fiber.

But first you have to get ready for a new vo-cabulary. In addition to “pulp” and “paper,” we now add “nanofibrillated cellulose” and “cellulose nanowhiskers.”

A “typical” cellulose fiber is about 30 mi-crometers wide and two-to-three millim-eters long. Nano fibers are about one one-thousandth the dimensions of a cellulose fiber. Actually, different grades of nanocel-lulose can be created (from microfibrillated down to nanowhiskers).

The North American research seems to focus more on the whiskers (nanocrys-tals) using chemical and hydrolysis pro-cesses (useful in coating for example). The European research focus in more on microfibers and nanofibers using mechani-cal and chemi-mechanical processes. The Japanese are also quite active.

Functional fiberWe are at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, near Helsinki, and we are talking with Pia Qvintus, Technology Manager for functional fiber products. “Our aim is to develop additional functionality for conventional fiber-based products such as paper and board,” she says. “To do this, we use new techniques for printing, or coat-

ing, or nanotechnology to expand the traditional applications for these products in a sustain-ability way.”

This is not esoteric re-search for the sake of research. “Yes, the pro-cessing and manufac-turing of products with nanotechnology some-times requires sophisti-cated production equipment, but the ma-chines we use are found in industry today,” Qvintus says. “We start by studying these materials in small laboratory scale and pilot plant settings, but our aim is to develop high-volume production methods that our industrial partners can take to market.

Some of the practical applications of VTT’s research are in the areas of construction, electronics, cosmetics, healthcare, and smart packaging. It is the packaging area that brought us to VTT today.

Plastic-like material from birch pulpIn a unique project spearheaded by VTT and Aalto University (VTT’s next-door neighbor at its campus in Espoo, Finland), and partnering with UPM, the consortium has developed a method which, for the first time, enables large-scale manufacturing of a wood-based material that has plastic-like properties – and then some.

“The end result is a fiber-based mate-rial that can be made in roll form, just like paper, and transparent, just like plastic,” Qvintus says. “The cellulose film is suitable for food packaging, for example, as it can be printed on and has excellent oxygen

SOME PRACTICAl ExAMPlES OF nanomaterIals today additives ▪ Stable thickener for cosmetics ▪ Emulsion stabilizer ▪ Additive to paints and resins ▪ Strength additive for construction

materials ▪ Enhanced oil recovery

Web structures ▪ Filler for paper and board

(can be increased up to 50%) ▪ Filler for printed electronics

substrates and conductors

thin film ▪ Barrier materials ▪ Packaging ▪ Organic pigments ▪ Smooth surfaces

Coating ▪ Thin layers (0.5-2 gsm)

“We start by studying these materials at lab scale, but our aim is to develop high-volume production methods.”Pia Qvintus

Technology Manager,

Functional Fibre Products,

VTT

barrier characteristics to protect the con-tents from spoiling.”

Qvintus is speaking of the unmodified na-nofilbrillated cellulose film here. By combin-ing it will well-known barrier materials and additives (live PVA or nanoclay) the film is resistant to high humidity as well.

UPM started pre-commerical production of Biofibrils (nano- and microfibrillated cellu-lose products) from pulp fiber in November 2011. “Our Biofibrils program is part of UPM’s Biofore strategy,” says says Esa laurinsilta, UPM’s Director of Biofibrils. “The main challenge in production is creat-ing these small particles that are uniform and consistent.”

major hurdle overcome“One of the hurdles we had to get over is that when water is added to nanofibrillated cellulose, a strong gel structure is imme-diately created,” Qvintus says. “While this is great for the concrete industry, it is not so great for film production. The bottleneck for industrial-scale manufacturing has been the requirement of pressurized filtration.”

(Name) (Title) of VTT with a roll of trans-

lucent packaging film produced from

nanofibrillated cellulose.

42 43

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Creme or gel? Panu Lahtinen, Senior Scientist for

Biomaterial Applications, shows two samples of

nanofibrillated cellulose. The opaque sample was

produced by high-speed fluidizing. The clear sample

was produced using a chemi-mechanical process.

One new method the consortium has de-veloped coats very thin plastic films with nanofibrillated cellulose thinly and evenly. When correctly spread, the films do not shrink and are completely even.

“What we have seen in the film we have produced so far is excellent print quality (no print-through on films as thin as 20 microns,” Qvintus says. “The base film is

translucent, but with simple chemistry we can make the film completely transparent. It is extremely fast drying and we can tailor the surface properties.”

Very important for aesthetics is that the printed film has excellent smoothness with-out any signs of wire markings that would be noticed with the conventional pressurize filtration manufacturing methods.

“Huge surface area to play with”One of the major benefits of nanoparticles and powders is the extremely large surface area. “When you change the scale of the cellulose fiber from micrometers to na-nometers, the fiber properties change be-cause we are multiplying the surface area,” Qvintus explains. “This huge surface area gives us completely new opportunities to tailor the properties of the fiber. For exam-ple, these nanoparticles can self-assemble to form molecule-thick layered structures. Molecule-thick.”


VTT has tailored methods to process na-noparticles into various nanocomposites. The bulk and surface properties of these materials can be strongly affected by na-nomodification – optical, thermal, electri-cal, magnetic, and mechanical.

“We are on the forefront of this work and it is an exciting place to be right now,” Qvintus concludes. “Our nano building blocks are abundant, natural, renewable, biocompati-ble, and have high strength. From fillers and simple surface treatments of conventional papers to the production of transparent film products – we are making nanoprogress every day.”

A printed film of nanocellulose manu-

factured in pilot scale through controlled

adhesion, spreading, and drying with

excellent smoothness and without wire

markings typically present with pressur-

ized filtration production methods.

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Pulp_VTT_Nano_Fiinland