Cellulose nanofiber board

Hossein Yousefi; Sona Azad; Mahdi Mashkour; Abolghasem Khazaeian

doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.01.081

Cellulose nanofiber board

Carbohydr Polym. 2018 May 1:187:133-139. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.01.081. Epub 2018 Feb 20.

Authors

Hossein Yousefi¹, Sona Azad², Mahdi Mashkour², Abolghasem Khazaeian²

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Sustainable Nanomaterials, Department of Wood Engineering and Technology, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, 4913815739, Gorgan, Iran. Electronic address: hyousefi@gau.ac.ir.
² Laboratory of Sustainable Nanomaterials, Department of Wood Engineering and Technology, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, 4913815739, Gorgan, Iran.

PMID: 29486838
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.01.081

Abstract

A cellulose nanofiber board (CNF-board) with a nominal thickness of 3 mm was fabricated without adhesive or additive. To provide comparison, a cellulose fiber board (CF-board) was also fabricated. A novel cold pre-press apparatus was made to dewater highly absorbent CNF gel prior to drying. A mild drying condition in the vacuum oven at 70 °C and 0.005 MPa was enough to provide the CNF-board with a density of 1.3 g/cm³ thanks to its self-densification capability. Unlike the CF-board, the fabricated CNF-board had a high water-activated dimensional recovery ratio (averagely 96%) during the five cyclic wetting-drying process. The flexural and tensile strengths of CNF-board obtained were 162 MPa and 85 MPa, respectively. The corresponding values for CF-board were 28 MPa and 11 MPa, respectively. The specific flexural and tensile strengths of CNF-board obtained were higher than those of CF-board as well as some other traditional wood-based composites, polymers and structural ASTM A36 steel.

Keywords: Board; Cellulose nanofiber; Dimensional recovery; Flexural strength; Self-densification.