Vitrimeric cellulose fibres: a route toward melt processable and reprocessable high-performance cellulose-based materials

Our society annually generates 400 Mt of fossil-sourced plastic waste, and we undoubtedly need to transition to bio-based materials.

This project will chemically modify cellulose fibres to make them thermoplastic, and combine this with a rapidly stimuli-responding vitrimer functionality; a combination of chemistries that facilitate melt processing and produce a fibre material that behaves like a durable and reprocessable thermoset.

Cellulose fibres have not been used in this way before as native fibres are not thermoformable and cannot be easily formed to complex-shaped products.

However, proper chemical modification, such as partially to dialcohol cellulose, makes fibres thermoplastic while still being compatible with papermaking operations; the fibres are thermoplastic enough to allow for melt-processing operations such as extrusion.

Unfortunately, such produced materials are very sensitive to humid and wet environments, limiting their potential as replacement candidates for conventional plastics.

A potent solution is found in the field of vitrimer chemistry, which utilises dynamic chemical cross-links, e.g. acetals, between polymers to provide a material that acts as a water-durable thermoset at the relevant temperatures of use, and yet like a thermoplastic polymer at higher temperatures.

Furthermore, to ensure that the ultimately produced material indeed is biodegradable, biodegradability will be measured and used as an important design factor for this new fibre material.