Dafni Foti¹, Costas Passialis¹, Elias Voulgaridis¹, Stergios Adamopoulos^2,*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.9, No.1, pp. 85-96, 2021, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2021.011868

Abstract Recycled polystyrene in combination with paraffin wax, alkyd resin, and gum rosin were used as components in formulations to investigate their water repellency when applied to cellulosic filter paper substrates. Polystyrene was used in concentration of 5, 10, 15 and 20%, alkyd resin and gum rosin of 5% each and paraffin wax of 0.5%. Totally, twenty four water repellent solutions were prepared. Water repellency was evaluated in terms of water absorption of the cellulosic fibrous mats. The relations between retention of solid substances of the formulations and grammage and water absorption of filter paper samples were also determined. The results… More >

Gustavo de Souza, Ricardo K. Kramer, Antonio J. F. Carvalho^*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.8, No.10, pp. 1257-1268, 2020, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2020.011906

Abstract Oil spills and oil/water wastewater are among the great concerns regarding oil pollution. Existing technologies face many limitations and in some cases are responsible for causing secondary pollution, therefore there is as seek for environmental friendly solutions. Biomass, from which celluloses are highlighted, are being employed for oil/water separation or oil absorbents membranes. Usually, these membranes are obtained by freeze drying of CNF (cellulose nano- fibrils) suspensions followed by chemical modification for hydrophobization, which involves expensive process as chemical vapor deposition and expensive reactants as sylanes, turning these processes hardly scalable. Here, we produced a natural porous structure paper from… More >

Heather L. Buckley^1*, Caitlin H. Touchberry², Jonathan P. McKinley², Zachary S. Mathe¹, Hurik Muradyan¹, Hannah Ling², Raj P. Fadadu¹, Martin J. Mulvihill¹, Susan E. Amrose²

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.5, No.1, pp. 1-13, 2017, DOI:10.7569/JRM.2016.634109

Abstract Waste cardboard is an underutilized resource that can be redirected for the creation of safer and higher quality building materials for low-income housing in the developing world, as well as to produce better materials for indoor environments in developed-world contexts. Using a renewable biobased binder and benign additives, we have improved the water resistance of a cardboard-based composite material, overcoming one of the major barriers to scaling and adoption of this class of materials. Resistance to water uptake was significantly increased with several additives and was increased over 900-fold in the best case. Strength and water uptake over time are… More >