Colloidal Stability of Aqueous Nanofibrillated Cellulose Dispersions

• Cellulose nanofibrils constitute an attractive raw material for carbon-neutral, biodegradable, nanostructured materials. Aqueous suspensions of these nanofibrils are stabilized by electrostatic repulsion arising from deprotonated carboxyl groups at the fibril surface. In the present work, a new model is developed for predicting colloidal stability by considering deprotonation and electrostatic screening. This model predicts the fibril-fibril interaction potential at a given pH in a given ionic strength environment. Experiments support the model predictions that aggregation is induced by decreasing the pH, thus reducing the surface charge, or by increasing the salt concentration. It is shown that the primary mechanism for aggregation upon the addition of salt is the surface charge reduction through specific interactions of counterions with the deprotonated carboxyl groups, and the screening effect of the salt is of secondary importance.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Kemi -- Materialkemi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Chemical Sciences -- Materials Chemistry (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Materialteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Materials Engineering (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Materialteknik -- Pappers-, massa- och fiberteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Materials Engineering -- Paper, Pulp and Fiber Technology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

microfibrillated cellulose

polyelectrolyte

cylinders

surfaces

fibers

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)