Abstract
Osmotic dehydration (OD) was introduced as a method to reproducibly tune the water content and porosity of cellulose nanofiber (CNF) hydrogels. The hierarchical porosity was followed by electron microscopy (pores with a >100 μm diameter) and thermoporosimetry (mesopores), together with mechanical testing, in hydrogels with solid contents ranging from 0.7 to 12 wt %. Furthermore, a reciprocal correlation between proton conductivity and the ratio of water bound to the nanocellulose network was established, suggesting the potential of these systems toward tunable energy materials.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 24-28 |
| Journal | ACS Applied Polymer Materials |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 14 Jan 2022 |
| MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Funding
V.G. and E.K. would like to acknowledge the Academy of Finland (AoF) for the Financial support by the Project AlgaLEAF (Project 322755). V.R. and T.T. would like to acknowledge the European Union via the project FuturoLEAF (European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 899576). J.P. and T.M. would like to acknowledge the Foundation for Research of Natural Resources in Finland. M.M. and J.V. would like to acknowledge the European Commission for generous funding for the ModelCom project. J.T. would like to acknowledge the AoF’s Flagship Programme, Projects 318890 and 318891 (Competence Center for Materials Bioeconomy, FinnCERES). This work utilized facilities provided by the RawMatters Finland Infrastructure (RAMI) at Aalto University, supported by AoF, and the facilities and technical support of the OtaNano Nanomicroscopy Center (Aalto-NMC).
Keywords
- cellulose nanofibers
- controlled water removal
- ion conductivity
- redispersion
- thermoporosimetry