Abstract
Bacterial cellulose (BC) can be used to improve the physical properties of paper. However, previous studies have showed that the effectiveness of this improvement is impaired by the agglomeration of the disintegrated BC fibers. Effective dispersion of BC fibers is important to their reinforcing effects to paper products, especially those made of recycled fibers. In this study, carboxymethyl cellulose, xylan, glucomannan, cationized starch, and polyethylene oxide were used to improve the dispersion of BC fibers. With dispersed BC fibers, the paper made of recycled fiber showed improved dry tensile strength. The best improvement in dry tensile index was 4.2 N·m/g or 12.7% up, which was obtained by adding BC fibers dispersed with glucomannan. Glucomannan had the highest adsorption onto BC fibers, i.e., 750 mg/g at 1000 mg/L concentration, leading to the best colloidal stability of BC fiber suspension that had no aggregation in 50 min at 0.1 weight ratio of glucomannan to BC. TEMPO-mediated oxidation of BC was effective in improving its colloidal stability, but not effective in improving the ability of BC fiber to enhance paper dry tensile index while the wet tensile index was improved from 0.89 N·m/g to 1.59 N·m/g, i.e., ~80% improvement.
Highlights
Due to the low-carbon environmental protection concept, a large proportion of paper and paperboard produced are recycled every year
This study is to explore the effective dispersion or stabilization of Bacterial cellulose (BC) fibers so that their reinforcing effects on paper made from recycled fibers could be improved
Proper dispersion of BC fibers can compensate for the pulp quality to some extent
Summary
Due to the low-carbon environmental protection concept, a large proportion of paper and paperboard produced are recycled every year. In 2014, approximately 60% of the raw materials for pulp and paper industries were fibers recycled from waste paper and paperboard globally [1]. Paper or paperboard made of recycled fibers generally had inferior physical properties compared to those made of virgin fibers [2,3,4]. Paper with excessive inorganic fillers for special surface properties, e.g., fire retardant, requires reinforcement [5]. Nano-cellulose, due to their structural similarity, compatibility and affinity to pulp fibers, as well as their high mechanical strength, was used to reinforce paper made from recycled fibers [3,6,7,8] or paper with excessive inorganic fillers [5]
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