Manufacturing Bio-inspired "Artificial Wood" from (Low-Cost) Ionic Liquids

Lead Research Organisation: Imperial College London
Department Name: Aeronautics

Abstract

There is currently a timely need to design and manufacture renewable materials for high volume structural applications and decouple our economy from fossil-derived non-renewable resources. Cellulose-based natural fibres are the prime candidate for the production of low-cost high-performance renewable composites. However, there is still a property-performance gap between natural fibre-reinforced polymers and traditional fossil-derived engineering materials (see Fig. 1), as the high tensile stiffness (up to 165 GPa) and strength (at least 1 GPa) of cellulose microfibrils have yet to be fully exploited in a composite setting. Nature has been very efficient at manipulating and exploiting cellulose microfibrils in wood (a natural composite) to produce high performance materials. This project will take inspiration from wood and manufacture the world's first "artificial wood", i.e. cellulose microfibril-reinforced lignin composites with the native cellulose-I structure preserved (mimicking wood cell wall), using simple and intrinsically scalable manufacturing concepts. The proposed research activities are structured around (i) manufacturing "artificial wood" from (low cost) ionic liquid, (ii) design and manufacture of unidirectional and continuous "artificial wood" fibre-reinforced renewable composites and (iii) optimising the techno-economics and lifecycle of "artificial wood"
manufacturing. It is envisaged that the resulting "artificial wood" will target engineering applications that cannot be achieved by conventional bio-based polymers or renewable natural fibre-reinforced polymers alone and could serve as alternative to traditional glass fibre-reinforced polymers.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Description Wood composed of lignin, hemicellulose and cellulose. Here we found that we could identify a perfect condition to fragment native lignin in wood using a selected ionic liquid, allowing it to dissolve into solution whilst maintaining the highly crystalline structure of cellulose. By controlling the conditions for native lignin fragmentation, the resulting fragmented lignin could possess a softening temperature. This then allowed us to "fuse" discrete wood particles together through the softening of the fragmented lignin deposited on the surface, consolidating them into a homogenous "artificial wood" structure. We also found that the fragmented lignin in solution could be repolymerised. This allowed us to create interesting material structures, including thin films, panels (lignocellulosic composite) and porous foam (i.e. "artificial wood foam").
Exploitation Route The aforementioned method could be applicable to re-use saw dust, which is typically burned in open fields. The cellulose dispersion in lignin solution can also be applied as a barrier coating (upon repolymerisation) onto a substrate. This is what attracted the attention of Unilever that allowed us to won an EPSRC Early stage prosperity partnership (EP/Y024729/1).
Sectors Chemicals

Construction

Environment

 
Description Bio-derived and Bio-inspired Advanced Materials for Sustainable Industries (VALUED)
Amount £6,139,080 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/W031019/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2023 
End 12/2027
 
Description Co-creation partnership fund
Amount £25,000 (GBP)
Organisation Unilever 
Sector Private
Country United Kingdom
Start 12/2021 
End 11/2022
 
Description EPSRC-iCASE: Flexible packaging films derived solely from lignocellulosic biomass - how far can we go to replace fossil-derived flexible plastic packaging
Amount £150,000 (GBP)
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2023 
End 09/2027
 
Description Imperial College London President's Excellence Fund for Frontier Research
Amount £315,970 (GBP)
Organisation Imperial College London 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2021 
End 09/2024
 
Description President's Excellence Fund for Frontier Research
Amount £250,000 (GBP)
Organisation Imperial College London 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2021 
End 06/2024
 
Description Transforming flexibles for a green packaging future
Amount £1,000,000 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/Y024729/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2024 
End 02/2027
 
Description Unilever 
Organisation Unilever
Department Unilever UK R&D Centre Port Sunlight
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution On the use of specific ionic liquids to manufacture cellulose/lignin films with barrier properties comparable to those of fossil-derived resources.
Collaborator Contribution Additional funding (on other projects), database, industrial confidential knowledge.
Impact Two iCASE awards, one co-creation partnership fund, one Royce Industrial Collaboration Partnership fund.
Start Year 2021
 
Description Iberoamerican Congress on Pulp and Paper Research 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact About 100 people attended the conference and the outcome of our presentation (from this grant) sparked an interesting conversation especially with a professor who is working with Nestle. He was interested in whether our technology could be used as a coating for some of Nestle's packaging.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://esdeveniments.udg.edu/70031/detail/ciadicyp-2022-iberoamerican-congress-on-pulp-and-paper-re...