Tuning the Porosity, Water Interaction, and Redispersion of Nanocellulose Hydrogels by Osmotic Dehydration

Valentina Guccini; Josphat Phiri; Jon Trifol; Ville Rissanen; Seyede Maryam Mousavi; Jaana Vapaavuori; Tekla Tammelin; Thaddeus Maloney; Eero Kontturi

doi:10.1021/acsapm.1c01430

Tuning the Porosity, Water Interaction, and Redispersion of Nanocellulose Hydrogels by Osmotic Dehydration

ACS Appl Polym Mater. 2022 Jan 14;4(1):24-28. doi: 10.1021/acsapm.1c01430. Epub 2021 Dec 22.

Authors

Valentina Guccini¹, Josphat Phiri¹, Jon Trifol², Ville Rissanen³, Seyede Maryam Mousavi⁴, Jaana Vapaavuori⁴, Tekla Tammelin³, Thaddeus Maloney¹, Eero Kontturi¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems, Aalto University, P.O. Box 16300, 00076 Espoo, Finland.
² Department of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering, Aalto University, Kemistintie 1, 02150 Espoo, Finland.
³ VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, VTT, PO Box 1000, FI-02044 Espoo, Finland.
⁴ Department of Chemistry and Materials Science, Aalto University, Kemistintie 1, 02150 Espoo, Finland.

Abstract

Osmotic dehydration (OD) was introduced as a method to reproducibly tune the water content and porosity of cellulose nanofiber (CNF) hydrogels. The hierarchical porosity was followed by electron microscopy (pores with a >100 μm diameter) and thermoporosimetry (mesopores), together with mechanical testing, in hydrogels with solid contents ranging from 0.7 to 12 wt %. Furthermore, a reciprocal correlation between proton conductivity and the ratio of water bound to the nanocellulose network was established, suggesting the potential of these systems toward tunable energy materials.