Progress 05/15/24 to 05/14/25
Outputs
Target Audience:This project specifically targets the development of commercially viable biofoams from cellulose nanomaterials to replace expanded polystyrene foam for seafood packaging applications. Our research effort is strengthened by the close collaboration with a key stakeholder, Sealaska, in the seafood industry. We have designed a comprehensive and cohesive research program to maximize the potential for commercial success at the end of the project. The successful completion of the proposed project will thus lead to the development of the next-generation of lightweight, efficient, safe, and functional bio-based materials. More importantly, the success of the project will promote the utilization of cellulose nanomaterials which will be produced from forest and agricultural wastes. This will greatly enhance the agricultural ecosystems and competitiveness of the US agricultural industry. The use of biofoams will help minimize ocean plastics pollution and enhance the aquatic wildlife health and wellbeing and indirectly the quality of seafood. It deserves to mention that the biofoams to be produced in this project will not be limited to only seafood packaging. The knowledge and technology generated from this project will contribute to the foundation of cellulose nanomaterials and expand the applications of forest and agricultural biomass feedstock in a wide variety of applications, including other packaging sectors, building/construction, automotive, etc. Changes/Problems:We had issues with recruiting graduate students during the first year We would like to request a no-cost extension to conduct detailed investigations and expand our collaboration with Pregis to conduct pilot testings. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project provided training for two PhD students at UML, Mohammad Aghvami-Panaha and Karun Kalia as well as one postdoc research associator (Dr. Junxia Wang) and an undergraduate RA (Jordan Booth) at WSU. Dr. Junxia Wan has advanced her career and joined the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as a scientist. Jordan Booth has gained a significant amount of experience and interest in applying nanomaterial for agricultural and food production. She has joined our group as a new PhD student. Leveraged by USDA funding, we have organized a four-week "Pathway to Carbon Neutral Economy" summer internship to provide training to high school students to learn renewable materials synthesis and testing. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Two papers were published. One US patent was granted US 12,152,120B2 "CELLULOSE FOAMSFORHIGH-PERFORMANCE INSULATION". Dr. Zhang has presented a poster with updated results from the pilot trial preparation of cellulose foam at the Grantee's meeting "GRC Nanoscale Science and Engineering for Agriculture and Food Systems Gordon Research Conference" June 2024, Manchester NH. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Plan for next year: Currently, we are investigating alternative co-polymers to replace PVA to enhance the final foam performance and reduce foam preparation time. We will complete the evaluation of the physical and mechanical properties of ensuing foams and determine the relationship between the material formulation, composition, fabrication details, and the performance of the resultant foams We will work with our industrial partners, Pregis and Sealaska to produce biofoams at a large scale for seafood applications and determine the techno-economic feasibility of biofoam production from cellulose nanomaterials
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
We have successfully fabricated scalable crosslinked foams using cellulose nanofibers (CNF) through an environmentally friendly and straightforward freeze-drying technique. A thorough analysis of the foams' microstructure, mechanical properties, and thermal characteristics has demonstrated their potential to replace traditional foams, owing to their exceptional mechanical strength and thermal insulation capabilities. The outcomes of studying the impact of solid content and CNF/PVA ratio on final properties indicate that as the solid content increased, there was a minor reduction in porosity and an increase in density. However, by only 3% reduction in porosity, not only uniform cellular structure was achieved but also Young's modulus increased from 41.18 KPa for 2CNF.A/20PVA to 1093.26 kPa for 6CNF.A/20PVA due to the formation of more integrated cross-linked cell walls as well as smaller cell size. In addition, by increasing CNF/PVA ratios, the microstructure of the foams improved and resulted in several folds increase in the mechanical properties while the density remained approximately unchanged. All foams had astonishing thermal insulation behavior with thermal conductivity in the range of 0.03-0.05 W/mK, which is comparable to petroleum-based insulating materials. CNF can be made at significantly lower cost than cellulose nanocrystals. Dr. Xiao Zhang has worked closely with Pregis and Innovative Freeze Dryer Compay to scale up the CNF-based biofoam production. The encouraging results have led to the establishment of a new pilot facility at Pregis (Dallas TX). Pregis has licensed WSU's cellulose foam technology. Dr. Zhang will work with Pregis to optimize cellulose foam preparation at the pilot scale.
Publications
- Type:
Peer Reviewed Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) barrier coating for extending banana shelf life
J Geng, J O'Dell, N Stark, P Kitin, X Zhang, JY Zhu
Food Hydrocolloids 150, 109671
- Type:
Peer Reviewed Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Ultralight cellulose nanofiber based foams: the effects of material formulation and nanofiber type on mechanical properties and thermal insulation
M Aghvami-Panah, J Wang, K Kalia, J Booth, X Zhang& - Cellulose, 2024
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Progress 05/15/23 to 05/14/24
Outputs
Target Audience:The goal of this three-year project is to demonstrate the commercial feasibility of producing bio-based packaging foam materials from cellulose nanomaterials, including cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) and cellulose nanofibrils (CNF), to replace currently utilized petroleum-based polystyrene foams for seafood packaging. The results generated from this project have demonstrated the potential of cellulose based foam can replace Styrofoam in all its applications. Our research has drawn a considerable amount of interest from a broad audience. We are working closely with our licensee Pregis toward commercializing this technology. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As WSU, an undergraduate research assistant was working on this project full time. She has shown a significant amount of interest in thisresearch and will continue to work with us as a new PhD student. Dr. Junxia Wang who has worked on this project has been recruited by Pacific Northwest National Lab. A PhD student from UML is also working on this project. At WSU, we have organized a summer internship program, "pathway to carbon neutral economy", at WSU for high school students and CBC MESA students (https://www.columbiabasin.edu/i-am/current-hawk/student-resources/math-engineering-science-achievement/index.html). Seven students attended this internship in summer 2023. We are continuing this summer internship program in 2024. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A manuscript will be submtited. We will also present project results at GRC meeting in June. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We are currently completing the experiments toward understanding the "Effects of Copolymers and Cellulose Type on Mechanical and Thermal Properties". We will work with Pregis to generate commercial size panels for testing at customer sites and conduct TEA analysis.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
In this year, we have made significant progresses toward understanding the effects of material formulation and nanofiber type on mechanical properties and thermal insulation of biobased panels. Cellulose-based foams with constant components' content but with different types of cellulose nanomaterials (CNM) were produced to discover the effect of nanofiber size on the physical properties. Four types of CNM were used: CNF.A (Valida S+), CNF.B (Valida 191), CNF.C (Valida L) and CNF.D (cellulose filaments from FP Innovations. The results showed that by changing the nanofibers size, mechanical and thermal properties were to some extent in the same range with slight ascending trend with increasing nanofibers size that were produced from less refining process. All foams had good thermal insulation behavior with thermal conductivity in the range of 0.03-0.05 W/mK, which is comparable with petroleum-based insulating materials. These unsubstantial changes unraveled the advantage of our method that for achieving foams with desirable properties, extensive refining process that increase the final production cost do not require. A manuscript has been prepared and will be submitted for journal publication. During this year. Dr. Zhang and WSU Office of Commercialization (WSU OC) have worked closely with Pregis, licensee of cellulose foam technology, toward pilot scale demonstration of cellulose production process. The pilot trials were conducted at a IFDF, a commercial freeze drying company in Washington State. We have prepared > 20 large size panels from the pilot trials and tested their properties. We have also identified new cellulose feedstock for commercial panel productions. The results are encouraging. Pregis is in the process to build a pilot freeze drying facility near Dallas TX to further optimize the panel production process. Dr. Zhang's group will assist their pilot operation.
Publications
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Progress 05/15/22 to 05/14/23
Outputs
Target Audience:The goal of this project is to demonstrate the commercial feasibility of producing bio-based packaging foam materials from cellulose nanomaterials, such as cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) and cellulose nanofibrils (CNF), to replace currently utilized petroleum-based polystyrene foams for seafood packaging. We have demonstrated that ultralight and strong bio-based foams can be produced from cellulose with excellent thermal insulation, fire resistance, mechanical properties and biodegradability. Our goal is to produce foams with 100% renewable materials to replace many types of petroleum-based insulation materials utilized in food packaging, building, and transportation. One of the largest markets in this regard is seafood packaging. Ocean plastic pollution has become an urgent global crisis that has a direct impact on the seafood industry. Replacing petroleum-based packaging materials by renewable and biodegradable plant-based alternatives will have a significant impact on curbing ocean plastic pollution and enhancing seafood safety. This research has drawn a considerable amount of interest from a broad audience. Our cellulose technology has been licensed to Pregis, a global packaging company. In 2022, we have collaborated with Innovative Freeze Dried Food to conduct scale up production trials. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has also sought collaboration with us to pursue NIFA-BARD-Nofar program application based on our cellulose foam technology. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project has provided training opportunities to one postdoctoral research associate and a undergraduate research assistant at Washington State University as well as a PhD student in University of Massachusetts Lowell. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Several presentations were made to national and international conferences. A manuscript is in preparation. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue working on foams preparation and characterizations and disseminate research results. We will work with our industrial partners to develop a commercial feasible foam production process.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
There are three tasks in this project. We have made significant progress toward all the tasks. Optimizing the formulation and composition and the fabrication process of cellulose nanomaterials based Biofoams. We have made a variety of cellulose foams with different types of co-polymers. polyethylene glycol (PEG), polyacrylic acid (PAA), polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP), polyacrylamides (PAM), alginic acid, starch, xanthan gum, dextran and pectin. We have also evaluated several commercially available cellulose nanomaterials (CNMs). Evaluating the physical and mechanical properties of the resulting foams and determining the relationships between the material formulation, composition, fabrication conditions, and the performance of the foams. We have conducted comprehensive characterizations of the cellulose foams prepared with different CNMs and co-polymers. A manuscript comparing the properties of cellulose foams made with different CNMs is in preparation. Producing biofoams at large scale for seafood applications and determining the techno-economic feasibility of biofoam production from cellulose nanomaterials. We have conducted more than a dozen of pilot trials to prepare large size foam (~ 2 feet by 2 feet) in a commercial freeze-drying company.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Cellulose-based Biofoam to Replace Styrofoam Packaging, Invited presentation, ACS fall conference, 08-21-2022 Chicago, Xiao Zhang
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Cellulose-based Biofoam for Temperature-controlled Packaging, Oral presentation, International conference on nanotechnology for renewable materials. 06-14-2022, Helsinki Finland, Xiao Zhang
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