Pulping and pretreatment affect the characteristics of bagasse inks for 3D printing

Bagasse is an underutilized agro-industrial residue with great potential as raw material for the production of cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) for a range of applications. In this study, we have assessed the suitability of bagasse for production of CNF for three-dimensional (3D) printing. First, pulp fibers were obtained from the bagasse raw material using two fractionation methods, i.e. soda and hydrothermal treatment combined with soda. Second, the pulp fibers were pretreated by TEMPO-mediated oxidation using two levels of oxidation for comparison purposes. Finally, the CNF were characterized in detail and assessed as inks for 3D printing. The results show that CNF produced from fibers obtained by hydrothermal and soda pulping were less nanofibrillated than the corresponding material produced by soda pulping. However, the CNF sample obtained from soda pulp was cytotoxic, apparently due to a larger content of silica particles. All the CNF materials were 3D printable. We conclude that the noncytotoxic CNF produced from hydrothermally and soda treated pulp can potentially be used as inks for 3D printing of biomedical devices.Fil: Chinga Carrasco, Gary. RISE PFI; NoruegaFil: Ehman, Nanci Vanesa. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Instituto de Materiales de Misiones. Universidad Nacional de Misiones. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Químicas y Naturales. Instituto de Materiales de Misiones; ArgentinaFil: Pettersson, Jennifer. RISE Bioscience and Materials; SueciaFil: Vallejos, María Evangelina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Instituto de Materiales de Misiones. Universidad Nacional de Misiones. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Químicas y Naturales. Instituto de Materiales de Misiones; ArgentinaFil: Felissia, Fernando Esteban. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Instituto de Materiales de Misiones. Universidad Nacional de Misiones. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Químicas y Naturales. Instituto de Materiales de Misiones; ArgentinaFil: Hakansson, Joakim. RISE Bioscience and Materials; SueciaFil: Area, Maria Cristina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Instituto de Materiales de Misiones. Universidad Nacional de Misiones. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Químicas y Naturales. Instituto de Materiales de Misiones; Argentin

From pine sawdust to cellulose nanofibres

Biorefinery technology is a current alternative to petroleum based industry to produce energy, chemicals and materials. The use of forest and agricultural lignocellulosic residues as raw materials to generate value-added products has become a topic of great interestdue to their renewability and availability. Pine sawdust is a promising candidate as raw material for biorefinery. This waste, which comes from the primary industrialization of wood, is available in large quantities, at low cost, and is currently open-airburned. The aim of this study was to obtain cellulose nanofiber (CNF) from pine sawdust. Delignification methods were applied to pulp until a kappa number lower than 1was achieved. CNF was produced by the combination of chemical (TEMPO-oxidation) pretreatment and mechanical destructuration in a homogenizer. Once CNF was produced at different oxidation degrees, the degree of polymerization, cationic demand, carboxyl rate, and the yield of fibrillation were determined with the purpose of assessing the effect of the oxidation degree on the final properties thereof.Finally, the suitability of using the obtained CNF as paper strength additive was studied through the assessment of the mechanical properties increase of pape