Background:
There is an urgent need to address the environmental issues arisen due to the widespread use of plastics on ecosystems, wildlife, and human health. On this backdrop, ICAR-CIRCOT worked on the extraction of nanocellulose from cotton cellulose and developed a unique chemo-mechanical process for the same. The same process can also be fine-tuned for production of nanocellulose from various other agro-biomasses:
Technology details:
• The use of nano-cellulose as fillers in biocomposites enhances the mechanical and barrier properties. The improvement in various properties is demonstrated in case of starch films for use in packaging of food items, fruits and vegetables:
• Nanocellulose is demonstrated to increase the quality parameters of water-based paints due to its unique rheological property:
• Nanocellulose increases the strength of paper when used as fillers and improves the printability when used as coating additives:
• Nanocellulose also improves the curing and setting parameters when added at the concentration of 1% in cement concrete due to its excellent water retention property.