API Recieves Patent for Flexible, Low Cost Nanocellulose Production

 

American Process (API), Atlanta, Ga., USA, has been granted a new patent this past month that is considered a significant breakthrough in nanocellulose production. It covers API’s new process for producing the company's recently introduced BioPlus Nanocellulose, as well as many additional downstream applications using nanocellulose.

The process includes fractionating a biomass feedstock with an acid, a solvent for lignin, and water, to generate cellulose-rich solids, and then mechanically treating the cellulose-rich solids with a relatively low amount of energy to form cellulose nanofibrils or nanocrystals.

To date, there hasn’t been much in the way of commercial-scale production due to cost issues. Plus, processes that can make it generally could only make one type of morphology and surface functionalization.

However, this new process produces nanocrystalline cellulose, or fibrils, or a mix of the two, and in both hydrophylic and hydrophobic forms. What this is expected to amount to in production is exceptionally lower costs. Innovations such as this are predicted to boost product availability and help the cellulose nanoparticles market grow to $808.3 million by 2022 (see OTW Oct. 29, 2015, edition).

The barrier for what to date have been considered "wonder materials" of the future such as nanocellulose is that they can be produced only in a lab-setting under ideal circumstances and thus have been cost prohibitive. But for nanocellulose, that is now changing rapidly.

This is why producing nanocellulose out of API’s AVAP® process is said to be "such a big deal" by the Digest. With the company's American Value Added Pulping (AVAP) technology, AVAP can be used to produce ethanol in bulk quantities from wood cellulose. This produces a high-value product to go along with the bulk quantities of fuel. Plus, with AVAP running at some scale in Thomaston, Ga. — with plans to introduce it at commercial-scale soon enough — manufacturers are getting enough samples to be able to develop robust applications.

 

More information on low cost production of nanocellulose with the AVAP® Biorefinery Technology is available by ordering topic documentation (in PDF format) from this past years' TAPPI International Conference on Nanotechnology for Renewable Materials via the TAPPI Press bookstore. 

"It’s all related to AVAP base technology," Lead Process Inventor Kim Nelson told the Digest in a recent interview explaining the process behind this new patent. "And, it’s highly tuneable. We have learned to tune the reaction conditions to produce crystals or fibrils or the mixture. And, with our nanocellulose we see significantly improved rheaology and viscosity." In conventional terminology, this means increasing the positive properties of flow, as well as thickness or stickiness. AVAP can make any high-viscosity product less expensive — from cosmetics to ketchup somewhere down the line when the FDA completes the usual evaluations.

"It’s all about the crystalline regions of cellulose," Nelson said of the overall "magic" of nanocellulose. "The crystalline regions can’t be broken down in wood; it can be up to 25% of a tree, and it’s what makes a tree stand for 5,000 years. So, it’s useful in applications such as body armor for the same reasons. Or, in vehicle lightweighting – one of our partners has achieved the same strength as reinforced 20% glass fiber, at lower mix rates, and a much lighter material.

"The common stat is that for every 10%  weight reduction you gain 7% fuel efficiency," Nelson told the Digest. "And, the DOE has a programmatic goal of reducing energy in transport by 50% by 2050."

"This milestone underscores API’s culture of biorefinery innovation in service to our planet. Our BioPlus Nanocellulose has conquered the major commercial barriers that have hitherto inhibited rapid market development. Specifically, BioPlus nanocellulose materials are cost competitive with traditional materials; they can be produced as a powder and we have introduced novel lignin-coated nanocellulose, both crystals and fibrils, that are oleophilic and compatible with plastic applications. We are currently focusing development of market applications ranging from packaging to transportation lightweighting and rheological modifiers," said Dr. Theodora Retsina, API’s CEO, on the newly patented process that helps realize the full potential of AVAP production.