Specifications
• NCC is composed of crystallites with average dimensions of 100nm length and 5nm diameter.
• NCC is non-toxic
• NCC has a surface area of about 500 m2/g allowing for high reactivity.
• Degree of polymerization =400-several thousands
Utilizations
1. Cellulose nanocrystals can be used as fillers to improve mechanical and barrier properties of biocomposites. (Siqueira et al, 2010).
2. In recent years, many researchers and manufacturers use natural fibers to replace man-made fibers such as glass fibers as reinforcement material and fillers to make environmentally safe products because they have many advantages such as renewable, low cost, low density, high specific strength and stiffness, high sound attenuation, nonabrasive nature (George et al., 2001).
3. Micro/nanofibrils isolated from natural fibers have much higher mechanical properties, so that much attention have been paid in the past two decades to study how to make micro/nanofibrils and how to combine them with polymers to make nanocomposites (Berglund, 2005; Herrick et al, 1983; Turbak et al, 1983).
4. It was stipulated that large quantities of whiskers suspensions are required to be used as nanoreinforcement in biopolymers (Bondeson et al. , 2006).
5. The use of cellulose nanoparticles (e.g., whiskers and microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) as reinforcement in nanocomposites is a relatively new area of interest. Besides the low cost of the raw material, the use of cellulosic particles as a reinforcing phase in nanocomposites has numerous well-known advantages e.g., low density; renewable nature; wide variety of filler available through the world; low energy consumption; high specific properties; modest abrasivity during processing; biodegradability; relatively reactive surface, which can be used for grafting specific groups and almost unlimited availability (Azizi Samir et al, 2005, Espert et al, 2004 and Tserki et al, 2005). For reinforcement applications, cellulose nanoparticles present some disadvantages, for instance, high moisture absorption, poor wetability, incompatibility with most of polymeric matrices and limitation of processing temperature. Indeed lignocellulosic materials start to degrade near 220 °C restricting the type of matrix that can be used in association with natural fillers (Azizi Samir et al, 2005, Wambua et al, 2003]. One drawback related to the use of cellulose whiskers for polymer nanocomposites is their inherent difficulty to disperse in non-polar medium, because of their polar surface (Oksman et al, 2006).