A Fundamental Review of the Relationships between Nanotechnology and Lignocellulosic Biomass - The Nanoscience and Technology of Renewable Biomaterials - page 37

wood products mills. A large amount of energy is also used in pollution control devices
to control emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and hazardous air pollutants
(HAPs). New regulations may require increased use of energy-intensive regenerative
thermal oxidizers to further control releases of VOCs and HAPs from mill operations.
The use of fossil fuels to power thermal oxidizers for VOC and HAP emissions control
has significantly increased natural gas consumption. Development of energy-efficient
and cost-effective technologies to reduce VOC and HAP emissions is needed. Advances
could include more energy-efficient pollution control technologies, methods to reduce
VOC and HAP precursors in the wood itself, or technologies to trap and purify specific
VOCs suitable for sale as byproduct chemicals. Overall goals for wood products are
to reduce capital and operating costs for wood products manufacturing by improving
energy efficiency and reducing emissions control costs while providing greater flexibility
to customize products for end-users. Nanotechnology needs are to: (1) reduce VOC and
HAP emissions from manufacturing wood-based products by 90%; (2) use nanoscale
materials and technology to improve conversion efficiencies of wood products; (3) use
nanocoatings and nanocatalysis to decrease emissions to indoor air from wood-based
products by 50%; (4) investigate ways to use nanotechnology and nanomaterials to
enhance and increase the efficiency of drying wood and wood-based materials in kilns and
presses; (5) increase marketable chemical byproducts of wood by 10%; and (6) employ
robust nanodimensional sensors (temperature, pressure, tensile/compressive forces, etc.)
to monitor and optimize processing conditions and improve conversion yields as well as
reduce/eliminate off-specification product productions; etc.

1.13 Summary

Nanotechnology is an emerging area of science and technology that will revolution-
ize materials use in the 21st century. Over the course of this century, we will move
from many of the relatively crude and unsophisticated technologies on which we cur-
rently depend and replace them with highly efficient and environmentally friendly nan-
otechnologies that meet the desired goals, guidelines, and principles of sustainability,
sustainable development, green chemistry, and green engineering. For the forest (ligno-
cellulosic) products industrial sector, nanotechnology will be used to tap the enormous
undeveloped potential that tree's possess - as photochemical 'factories' that produce rich
sources of raw materials using sunlight and water. Lignocellulosic biomass resources
provide a key materials platform for the sustainable production of renewable, recy-
clable, and environmentally preferable raw materials for producing goods and products
to meet the needs of people. Lignocellulosics provide a vast material resource and are
geographically dispersed. Humankind has done an excellent job of capturing the val-
ues that wood can provide at the macro- to microscales, but the values of wood and
wood-based materials at the nanoscale are virtually untapped. The vision for nanotech-
nology in the forest products is to sustainably meet the needs of present and future
generations for wood-based materials and products by applying nanotechnology science
and engineering to efficiently and effectively capture the entire range of values that
wood-based lignocellulosic materials are capable of providing. In addition, the ligno-
cellulosic products industry sees its inherent strengths as including: (1) stewardship of