The Exilva Blog

Governments around the world are pushing industries to reduce their volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions. VOCs include very different type of chemicals but they may be dangerous to human health and therefore there is a common desire to reduce the use of them. Health effects vary from eye, nose and throat irritation to causing cancer.

Microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) differs from many rheology modifiers in that aspect that it can be used in high salinity formulations. The rheology effect comes from entangled fibers and salts do not influence this network as it does when the rheology effect is based on ionic interactions. However, the viscosity and other rheological properties vary slightly as a function of salt concentration. Let’s take a closer look at the reasons behind this.

Three dimensional (3D) printing and tissue engineering are two fields that are currently developing rapidly and are both exciting technologies on their own. What if you combine them? That creates a new manufacturing process, bioprinting. It is a promising technology that might be the key to the on-demand tissue engineering. Microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) or nanocellulosic materials generally have an important role in the development.

Oil recovery with all different operations is a fascinating field for a rheologist since so versatile rheological properties are required in the processes. Microfibrillated cellulose has been recognized as potential green, safe rheology modifier for the oil recovery industry. Why is that?

Making foams, in other words introducing gas in a solid or liquid, is needed in industries like construction, composites, home care and personal care. Solid foam is a clever way to produce lightweight structures and insulation materials, whereas many personal care and detergent formulations are required to form a liquid foam.

From time to time I get comments from people interested in microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) that they cannot dissolve the product, and the formulation remains hazy no matter how much they mix. Alternatively, they ask how low the concentration needs to be to get a transparent formulation. The answer to these questions is that microfibrillated cellulose does not dissolve in water (or in common solvents) which means that it does not make a transparent solution, no matter how much it is mixed or how low concentration is used. There is no need to worry, however; the non-dissolved fibers are the key factor to the interesting behavior of MFC. Let’s look at the translucency of MFC in more detail.

Developing a new kind of material is fascinating work and requires many innovations before the product is available for the market. One important part of the development work is to find analysis methods t for characterizing the quality. Those methods should ideally describe the material well but also be reproducible and reliable. Often this is ensured by using standard methods, but for new materials, like microfibrillated cellulose (MFC), they do not exist yet. Even though some work has been initiated by Canadian Standards Association (Z5100-14 Cellulosic nanomaterials – Test methods for characterization) and TAPPI, there are no proper guidelines for analysis of MFC yet. As a guidance to those unfamiliar with microfibrillated cellulose, I will share my tips for a reliable, reproducible analysis of MFC.

Cosmetic products are one of the most exciting application areas for microfibrillated cellulose (MFC). The opportunities within this field are almost endless as Mr. Rainer Kröpke from Cosmacon GmbH has learned when working with MFC in cosmetic applications. Mr. Kröpke has a long experience in formulating cosmetic products first at Beiersdorf (Germany) and since 2012 as a consultant. Read below his interview where he shares his experiences with all our blog readers.

Microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) is subject to high interest from both academia and the industry these days. A lot of exciting research is being conducted at various universities and research centers around the world. In this blog post I will review articles I found particularly interesting regarding the use of MFC in adhesives and coatings. Note that, for the sake of simplicity, I have used the term “MFC” throughout this text even if the researchers might have used a different name in their articles.