Group research area: Cellulose

The aim of this project is to produce zwitterionic cellulose aerogels. Aerogels are interesting materials, commonly produced by freeze-drying or supercritical drying of hydrogels. These two processes are highly energy inefficient, therefore more energy efficient methods to produce aerogels are of interest. From preliminary results, the electrostatic-statically driven assembly of surface modified cellulose nanofibrils allows the formation of hydrogels with great mechanical strength able to avoid the collapsing of network upon oven-drying. We propose a masters project focussed on the development of new oven-dried cellulose based aerogels. To better understand the system, the student will mainly deal with extensional rheology, adsorption isotherm techniques (BET), and microscopy (e.g. SEM and AFM).

If you are interested in this project please contact Prof. Edler or Andrew (Office 0.15).

Visual observation and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of cellulose aerogels obtained by oven drying processes.

References:

1. N. T. Cervin, et al, Biomacromolecules, 2013, 14, 503–511.

2. Y. Li, et al, ACS Sustain. Chem. Eng., 2017, 5, 6387–6391.

3. Q. Y. Mi, et al, ACS Sustain. Chem. Eng., 2016, 4, 656–660.