Nanocellulose characterization with mechanical fractionation

A novel fractionation method was developed to characterize nanocellulose in terms of particle size. The fractionation device ues screens or membranes with known size. The scale is in the range of micro to nano, so that NFCs can be size- or shape-fractionated accordingly. The procedure is somewhat analogous to the Bauer-McNett fiber classifier. The reproducibility of the obtained size profile was very good. The device can also produce size specific nano-celluloses, which could be applied for scientific research purposes, e.g. nano risk assessment. Fractionation with membrane filters was able to screen out almost all particles. However, the membrane permeate contained significant amounts of dissolved substances.