Synergies between Fibrillated Nanocellulose and Hot-Pressing of Papers Obtained from High-Yield Pulp.

To extend the application of cost-effective high-yield pulps in packaging, strength and barrier properties are improved by advanced-strength additives or by hot-pressing. The aim of this study is to assess the synergic effects between the two approaches by using nanocellulose as a bulk additive, and by hot-pressing technology. Due to the synergic effect, dry strength increases by 118% while individual improvements are 31% by nanocellulose and 92% by hot-pressing. This effect is higher for mechanical fibrillated cellulose. After hot-pressing, all papers retain more than 22% of their dry strength. Hot-pressing greatly increases the paper's ability to withstand compressive forces applied in short periods of time by 84%, with a further 30% increase due to the synergic effect of the fibrillated nanocellulose. Hot-pressing and the fibrillated cellulose greatly decrease air permeability (80% and 68%, respectively) for refining pretreated samples, due to the increased fiber flexibility, which increase up to 90% using the combined effect. The tear index increases with the addition of nanocellulose, but this effect is lost after hot-pressing. In general, fibrillation degree has a small effect which means that low- cost nanocellulose could be used in hot-pressed papers, providing products with a good strength and barrier capacity.

Lignin Inter-Diffusion Underlying Improved Mechanical Performance of Hot-Pressed Paper Webs.

Broader use of bio-based fibres in packaging becomes possible when the mechanical properties of fibre materials exceed those of conventional paperboard. Hot-pressing provides an efficient method to improve both the wet and dry strength of lignin-containing paper webs. Here we study varied pressing conditions for webs formed with thermomechanical pulp (TMP). The results are compared against similar data for a wide range of other fibre types. In addition to standard strength and structural measurements, we characterise the induced structural changes with X-ray microtomography and scanning electron microscopy. The wet strength generally increases monotonously up to a very high pressing temperature of 270 °C. The stronger bonding of wet fibres can be explained by the inter-diffusion of lignin macromolecules with an activation energy around 26 kJ mol-1 after lignin softening. The associated exponential acceleration of diffusion with temperature dominates over other factors such as process dynamics or final material density in setting wet strength. The optimum pressing temperature for dry strength is generally lower, around 200 °C, beyond which hemicellulose degradation begins. By varying the solids content prior to hot-pressing for the TMP sheets, the highest wet strength is achieved for the completely dry web, while no strong correlation was observed for the dry strength.

Time-dependent breakdown of fiber networks: Uncertainty of lifetime.

Materials often fail when subjected to stresses over a prolonged period. The time to failure, also called the lifetime, is known to exhibit large variability of many materials, particularly brittle and quasibrittle materials. For example, a coefficient of variation reaches 100% or even more. Its distribution shape is highly skewed toward zero lifetime, implying a large number of premature failures. This behavior contrasts with that of normal strength, which shows a variation of only 4%-10% and a nearly bell-shaped distribution. The fundamental cause of this large and unique variability of lifetime is not well understood because of the complex interplay between stochastic processes taking place on the molecular level and the hierarchical and disordered structure of the material. We have constructed fiber network models, both regular and random, as a paradigm for general material structures. With such networks, we have performed Monte Carlo simulations of creep failure to establish explicit relationships among fiber characteristics, network structures, system size, and lifetime distribution. We found that fiber characteristics have large, sometimes dominating, influences on the lifetime variability of a network. Among the factors investigated, geometrical disorders of the network were found to be essential to explain the large variability and highly skewed shape of the lifetime distribution. With increasing network size, the distribution asymptotically approaches a double-exponential form. The implication of this result is that, so-called "infant mortality," which is often predicted by the Weibull approximation of the lifetime distribution, may not exist for a large system.

Time-dependent statistical failure of fiber networks.

Numerical simulations of time-dependent stochastic failure of fiber network have been performed by using a central-force, triangular lattice model. This two-dimensional (2D) network can be seen as the next level of structural hierarchy to fiber bundles, which have been investigated for many years both theoretically and numerically. Unlike fiber bundle models, the load sharing of the fiber network is determined by the network mechanics rather than a preassigned rule, and its failure is defined as the point of avalanche rather than the total fiber failure. We have assumed that the fiber in the network follows Coleman's probabilistic failure law [B. D. Coleman, J. Appl. Phys. 29, 968 (1958)] with the Weibull shape parameter ß=1 (memory less fiber). Our interests are how the fiber-level probabilistic failure law is transformed into the one for the network and how the failure characteristics and disorders on the fiber level influence the network failure response. The simulation results showed that, with increasing the size of the network (N), weakest-link scaling (WLS) appeared and each lifetime distribution at a given size approximately followed Weibull distribution. However, the scaling behavior of the mean and the Weibull shape parameter clearly deviate from what we can predict from the WLS of Weibull distribution. We have found that a characteristic distribution function has, in fact, a double exponential form, not Weibull form. Accordingly, for the 2D network system, Coleman's probabilistic failure law holds but only approximately. Comparing the fiber and network failure properties, we found that the network structure induces an increase of the load sensitivity factor ρ (more brittle than fiber) and Weibull shape parameter ß (less uncertainty of lifetime). Superimposed disorders on the fiber level reduce all these properties for the network.