Cellulose Nanocrystals in Polymer Matrices - The Nanoscience and Technology of Renewable Biomaterials - page 277

Table10.1 Length(L)andcrosssection(l)ofcellulosenanocrystalsfromvarioussources.

Source L (nm) l (nm) Reference

Bacterial 100-1000s 5- 10 × 30 -50 Araki and Kuga 2001; Grunnert and

Winter 2002; Roman and Winter
2004

Cotton 100-300 5-10 Dong etal. 1998; Podsiadlo etal.

2005

Cotton linter 100-200 15-35 Elazzouzi-Hafraoui etal. 2008

MCC 150-300 3-7 Bondeson etal. 2006a, 2006b;

Elazzouzi-Hafraoui etal.
2008

Ramie 200-400 8-10 Hanley etal. 1992; Habibi etal.

2007

Sisal 100-500 3-5 Garcia de Rodriguez etal. 2006

Tunicin 100-1000s 10-20 Habibi etal. 2007;

Elazzouzi-Hafraoui etal. 2008

Valonia > 1000 10-20 Revol 1982; Hanley etal. 1992

Wood 100-300 3-15 Araki etal. 1998, 1999;

Beck-Candanedo etal. 2005

10.3 Polymer Nanocomposite Systems

Cellulose nanocrystals have received attention as reinforcing material in nanocomposites
due to their low cost, high availability, natural renewability, nanoscale dimensions, high
surface area, unique morphology, ease of chemical modification and low density, as well
as their good mechanical response to stress.
The density of CNXLs calculated from X-ray diffraction data is 1.566 g/cc (Battista
1975) while the density of pure crystalline cellulose I β is 1.61 g/cc (Nishiyama et al .
2002). The mechanical performance of CNXLs compare well with other materials (see
Table 10.2).

Table10.2 StrengthandstiffnessofCNXLscomparedtoothermaterials.(Jones1975).

Material Tensile strength Modulus Reference

(GPa) (GPa)

Cellulose crystal 7.5 145 Marks 1967; Eichhorn etal. 2005

Glass fiber 4.8 86 -

Steel wire 4.1 207 -

Graphite whisker 21 410 -

Carbon nanotubes 11-63 270-970 Yu etal. 2000