Seminar Announcement:：Towards Economical and Sustainable Production of Wood Based Nanomaterials

About the Speaker:

Dr. J.Y. Zhu is a scientific team leader at the US Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, Wisconsin. He was the Inaugural Fulbright-Aalto University Distinguished Chair in Energy and Sustainable Use of Natural Resources (2015-2016 academic year), Helsinki, Finland. He holds an Adjunct Appointment at the Dept. of Biological Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research covers a broad area of wood and fiber utilization from wood pulping, fiber physics, bioenergy and biofuels, to cellulose nanomaterials that encompassed from laboratory studies to commercial scale demonstrations. The SPORL process his group developed was used for the world FIRST successful woody cellulosic bio-jet (from forest residue) commercial flight from US west coast (Seattle) to east coast (Washington DC) on November 14, 2016. Dr. Zhu’s achievements were honored with AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) Andrew Chase Award in 2016, TAPPI (Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry) International R&D Technical Award and William Aiken Prize in 2014, and US Forest Service Deputy Chief for R&D Distinguished Science Award in 2013. Dr. Zhu is a Fellow of TAPPI, AIChE, and IAWS (International Academy of Wood Science).

Research Gate Publication page: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/JY_Zhu/

Google Scholar Publication List: http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=RHy3aEYAAAAJ&view_op=list_works

Abstract of Presentation

Lignocellulose based nanomaterials such as cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) have attracted great interest recently due to renewability, biodegradability, and other unique mechanical and optical properties with a potential to produce a variety of products for a sustainable future. Achieving economic and environmentally sustainable production, however, is the key to commercial success.

In this presentation, I will outline the current status of cellulose nanomaterial production including the deficiencies of existing technologies. Then, I would like to discuss some of our research on integrated production of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) and fibrils (CNF) with full recovery of chemicals. Specifically I will present our recent study using dicarboxylic acids (DCAs) for sustainable and potentially economical production of highly thermal stable and functional (carboxylated) cellulose nanomaterials. Finally, I will briefly discuss our progress in producing lignin containing cellulose nanomaterials and lignin nanoparticles (LNP). Specifically, I will present a low temperature ( ≤ 80 °C) and low energy wood fractionation process for producing lignin CNF (LCNF) and LNP, rather than from chemical pulps, to substantially reduce production cost.