Hydrogels from Hydrothermal Treatment of Nanocrystalline Cellulose and their Applications

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Canada's cellulosic fibre species are known as an abundant, renewable organic material with outstanding properties and a variety of existing and potentially useful, high-demand applications. More specifically nanocrystalline cellulose (CNC) is of particular interest to this proposal due to: (i) it is a unique material possessing a number of outstanding properties; (ii) Canada has its own CNC technologies and patenting rights to produce these materials; (iii) CNC's potential use in many applications is not yet fully explored. The proposal is based on our previous research in the area of kraft pulp suspensions and aims to produce technologies important to the Canadian economy and to that of the province of British Columbia. It is noted that numerous Canadian and International companies exist with interest in cellulose-based bio-products including Domtar, Solegear, Performance Biofilaments, Fibria, Canfor and Noram to name but a few. We have active collaboratons with Noram, Solegear and FPinnovations and we plan to continue and extend these collaborations.****The long term objective is to develop transformative technologies that will target to convert CNC into useful materials and in addition combine it with biodegradable polymers to create value-added bio-products. More specific targets of this proposal are first to develop hydrogels and polyelectrolyte hydrogels based on CNC as sensors for external stimuli such as pressure, temperature and pH . The optimum properties of these sensors will be determined by developing a Molecular Dynamics (MD) method to simulate polyelectrolyte hydrogels. This theoretical framework will calculate the dynamics of these stimuli-responsive polyelectrolyte “smart” hydrogels and the results obtained from the simulations will be used to optimise the properties of the hydrogels to enable their manufacture. Moreover the use of polymer grafted CNC will be used to develop bio-nanocomposites. The main goal is to first synthesize biodegradable polymers and co-polymers of controlled microstructure which will be grafted onto the CNC fibers to produce fully biodegradable and environmentally friendly biocomposites. Finally the use of CNC hydrogels that will be produced by hydrogel methods (fully environmentally-friendly) will be used in stabilizing important products such as inks and paints, supporting Canada in leading the transition from a fossil-based economy to a sustainable and renewable bio-economy.****This proposal is designed to train 10 HQP at different levels from undergraduate (UG) to PhD. The outcomes from this work will stimulate industrial interest and funding will be generated to double this number of HQP within the period of this program as has been the case in the past. The essence of this proposal is that it aims to develop fully bio-based, “smart” technology applications and products which will be essential building blocks in a sustainable environment.***