Enhanced pre-treatment of cellulose pulp prior to dissolution into NaOH/ZnO

As a result of the constantly growing demand for textile fibres interest in utilising cellulose pulps for manufacturing regenerated cellulose fibres is growing. One promising water-based process for the manufacture of regenerated cellulosic products is the Biocelsol process based on an NaOH/ZnO solvent system. The drawback of the Biocelsol process is the need for pre-treatment of the pulp, i.e. long mechanical pre-treatment (up to 5 h) followed by a 2-3-h enzymatic hydrolysis utilising a rather high amount of cellulolytic enzymes. In this work more efficient conditions to carry out the pre-treatment of cellulose pulp prior to dissolution into NaOH/ZnO are presented. Based on the results, cellulase treatment, when carried out in an extruder, can be used to effectively open up and fibrillate the fibres without completely destroying the fibre structure. The molar mass of the pulp treated enzymatically in an extruder was 14 % lower as compared to the state-of-the-art-treated cellulose. As a consequence, the alkaline solutions prepared from the pulp treated enzymatically in an extruder had clearly lower dope viscosities regarding the cellulose content than the solutions prepared from the state-of-the-art-treated pulp. This enabled increasing the cellulose content in the dope up to 7 % (w/w) without increasing the dope viscosity

RA Differentiation Enhances Dopaminergic Features, Changes Redox Parameters, and Increases Dopamine Transporter Dependency in 6-Hydroxydopamine-Induced Neurotoxicity in SH-SY5Y Cells

Experimental investigations were performed to characterize the mechanical properties of bamboo fiber-polyester composites. The composite laminates were fabricated by infusing different forms of untreated bamboo fibers (randomly oriented, bamboo textiles and bamboo foam cores) with polyester resin. The results showed that the engineered bamboo fiber composites have strength and stiffness properties suitable for structural applications. Among the tested composites, the laminates with randomly oriented bamboo fibers exhibited the highest strength properties. Its strength in flexure, tension, compression, and shear are 58, 35, 48, and 32 MPa, respectively and its Modulus of Elasticity (MOE) is 3.2GPa. However, only the tensile strength and MOE showed better properties to that of neat polyester resin which are 15% and 4% higher, re-spectively possibly due to relatively poor load transfer between the fibers and the matrix. Importantly, the flexural strength of the bamboo fiber-polyester composites is 200% and 30% higher than the standard particleboard and medium density fiberboard, respectively used in the construction industry. It is expected that the results of this preliminary study will provide information to support the development and application of this new generation composites in housing and construction