Xing Zhou^1,*, Xin Zhang¹, Dong Wang¹, Changqing Fang^1,*, Wanqing Lei¹, Zhigang Huang², Yonghua Song¹, Xinyu He¹, Yingwei Huang¹

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.8, No.6, pp. 631-645, 2020, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2020.010176

Abstract Cellulose plays a key role in abundant organic natural materials meeting the increasing demand for green and biocompatible products. The highly crystalline nanoscale component of cellulose nanocrystals has recently attracted great attention due to the versatile performance as filler or matrix in producing functional materials. In this work, we prepared the waterborne polyurethane via a prepolymer process, and obtained cellulose and cellulose nanocrystals from waste paper via a facile acid hydrolysis process. After that, the cellulose nanocrystals were assembled into film and mixed with polyurethane to prepare flexible polyurethane/cellulose nanocrystals composite membrane with different soaking time. The correlation between the… More >

Nadezda Stevulova^1,*, Viola Hospodarova¹, Adriana Estokova¹, Eva Singovszka¹, Marian Holub¹, Stefan Demcak¹, Jaroslav Briancin², Anton Geffert³, Frantisek Kacik³, Vojtech Vaclavik⁴, Tomas Dvorsky⁴

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.7, No.11, pp. 1121-1145, 2019, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2019.07556

Abstract The aim of this study was to characterize two types of cellulosic fibers obtained from bleached wood pulp and unbleached recycled waste paper with different cellulose content (from 47.4 percent up to 82 percent), to compare and to analyze the potential use of the recycled fibers for building application, such as plastering mortar. Changes in the chemical composition, cellulose crystallinity and degree of polymerization of the fibers were found. The recycled fibers of lower quality showed heterogeneity in the fiber sizes (width and length), and they had greater surface roughness in comparison to high purity wood pulp samples. The high… More >