Making new fibres from wood pulp currently requires toxic chemicals and vast amounts of fresh water, so researchers are developing a cleaner method using "green solvents" to spin high-performance cellulose fibres instead. This matters because most textiles and composite materials today rely on petroleum-based polymers like polyester, nylon, and carbon-fibre precursors. The dominant way to make cellulose fibres—the Viscose process—is so chemically intensive and water-hungry that it has largely been abandoned in favour of synthetic alternatives. UK production of cellulose fibres dropped from over 1.3 million tons per year in 1973 to just 0.4 million tons by 2008. The research aims to reverse that decline by creating an environmentally benign manufacturing route. If successful, these green-solvent cellulose fibres could replace heavy glass fibres—which require large amounts of energy to produce—and the non-renewable polymer precursors used to make carbon fibres. That would affect industries the public rarely thinks about: aerospace, automotive, sports equipment, and wind energy, where composites are critical. The result would be lighter, more sustainable materials for everything from aircraft fuselages to turbine blades, without the toxic legacy of current fibre production.
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To reduce society's dependence on petroleum based non-renewable polymers, large scale utilization of naturally occurring, abundantly available polymers such as cellulose needs to be developed. One of the major challenges in large scale utilization of cellulose from biomass is dissolution and processing of cellulose to prepare downstream products such as high performance textile fibres. The Viscose method is the most common way to manufacture cellulose fibres; however, it is a complex, multistep process which involves use of very aggressive chemicals and requires a large volume of fresh water. In the 1970s, petroleum based synthetic polymer fibres such as polyester and nylon were commercialised and were proven to be more economical than producing cellulose fibres via the Viscose method. Hence, the production of cellulose fibres was reduced from over 1.3 million tons per year in 1973 to 0.4 million tons per year by 2008 (Source: International Rayon and Synthetic Fibres Committee). To overcome this issue of processing of cellulose we are proposing to develop an environmentally benign method of manufacturing of high performance cellulose fibres using "Green Solvents". The proposed research will help develop sustainable and high performance cellulose fibres which can in-principle replace heavy glass fibres (which requires high energy during its manufacturing) and non-renewable polymer precursors used for manufacturing of carbon fibres which are widely used in composites for aerospace, auto, sports and wind energy industries in UK and abroad.
Alexander Bismarck (Co-Investigator)Kevin Potter (Principal Investigator)SJ Eichhorn (Principal Investigator)Sameer Rahatekar (Co-Investigator)Thomas Welton (Co-Investigator)
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