FPL’s nanocellulose pilot plant, housed within a larger laboratory research area
FPL’s new Nanocellulose Pilot Plant has garnered significant notice in the local and international press over the past few months. A live report by Madison’s NBC affiliate claimed the Pilot Plant “a game changer” at the facility’s grand opening in mid-July and media interest picked up steadily from there. A popular story on the USDA Blog in early August, 2012, highlighted the $1.7 million Pilot Plant as the first of its kind in the United States, situating FPL as the leading producer of domestic, renewable, forest-based nanomaterials.
Nanotechnology is a booming field of science working with materials ranging in size from 1 to 100 nanometers in at least one dimension. A nanometer is roughly one-millionth the thickness of an American dime or about 80,000 times thinner than a typical human hair. Materials at this minute scale have unique properties not found at the “human” scale. The FPL Pilot Plant can produce semi-commercial-scale batches of cellulose nanofibrils and cellulose nanocrystals from renewable, wood-based sources.
Cellulosic nanomaterials have unique photonic and piezoelectric properties, are stronger than Kevlar fiber, and provide high strength and high stiffness with low weight. Potential applications for these nano-materials include use in structural components, building materials and composites, high-strength paper and packaging, and biodegradable electronics. These attributes have attracted the interest of the Department of Defense for use in lightweight armor and ballistic glass as well as companies in the automotive, aerospace, consumer products, electronics, and medical device industries. All see massive economic potential for these innovative wood-derived materials.
Screenshot of the USDA Blog, highlighting nano at FPL
In late August, The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) featured an interview with FPL supervisory research chemist Alan Rudie. On behalf of its 40 million listeners worldwide, the BBC reporter asked, “is there nothing nanocellulose can’t do?” The future of nanocellulose is indeed, wide open.
New Scientist magazine also featured FPL and the topic of nanocrystalline cellulose, or what it calls “the hottest new material in town,” in its August issue. Aiming to contextualize science and social issues, the New Scientist piece “Why wood pulp is the world’s new wonder material,” helped to introduce the FPL’s Nano Pilot Plant to an audience of business decision-makers and technology aficionados worldwide.
In mid-September, an Australian radio program focused on rural issues, ABC Rural’s The Country Hour, also interviewed Alan Rudie about the new pilot plant. The Australian ABC is the down-under equivalent of National Public Radio in the United States. Though The Country Hour reported that nanocellulose “is simply wood that has been carefully smashed to pieces, and then reformed into neatly-woven “nano” scale fibers,” this description is only partially true.
Cellulose nanofibril (CNF) materials are produced using mechanical means, indeed, a highly refined version of being “smashed to pieces.” CNFs are also known as nanfibrillated cellulose. The other main type of cellulosic nanomaterials being produced at the FPL Nano Pilot Plant, cellulose nanocrystals (CNC), are rod-like or whisker-shaped structures produced through chemical means such as acid hydrolysis.
The FPL Nano Pilot Plant has made a splash across the internet on industry and government sites as well as technology and business sites like Slashdot, Gizmag, Teru Talk, and Bloomberg Businessweek. Regionally, around FPL’s home-base in Madison, Wis., the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin State Journal, In Business magazine, and the Wisconsin Technology Council have also featured stories.
Compiled by James T. Spartz, Forest Products Laboratory Office of Communication.
