Chapter 14 - Biopolymer/nanolignin films with enhanced toughness

Abstract

With a large number of active functional groups, lignin has many attractive properties such as high carbon content, high thermal stability, biodegradability, antioxidant activity and good rigidity. The size of nano-lignin decreases to a certain critical value of nano-scale, and the proportion of the interface in the total volume of the material is significant, thus showing unique physical, chemical and mechanical properties. In this part, we first introduce several preparation methods of nano-lignin, mainly introduce the recent studies on the toughening of LNPs and biodegradable/non-biodegradable materials. In some of them, lignin was used as matrix, while most used LNPs as toughening filler. The toughening mechanism of these composites was summarized. In addition, these toughened composites often have more functions, making them applicable to packaging materials, biological scaffolds, wound dressings and other fields.