Comparative study of cellulose and lignocellulose nanopapers prepared from hard wood pulps: Morphological, structural and barrier properties

The current research intended to explore the hardwood pulps capabilities to produce cellulose (CNPs) and lignocellulose nanopapers (LNPs) and feasible enhancement of their performance for possible utilization in sustainable packaging. The high-yield hardwood pulps were then bleached to show the fundamental role of residual lignin on the ultrafine fibrillation processes, structural and barrier properties of nanopapers. X-ray diffraction results demonstrated that the crystallinity and crystallite size of CNPs and LNPs were lower than the corresponding starting pulps. Field emission scanning electron microscopy analysis showed that the average nanofibril diameter of the CNPs and LNPs are 35 nm and 23 nm, respectively. Elastic modulus of LNPs was found to be 9.1 and 10.8 GPa for Chemimechanical and Neutral sulfite semichemical pulps, respectively. The semi-porous and consolidated structure of LNPs prepared from CMP fibers contributed to yield the lowest water vapor transmission rate i.e. 108 g/m2.day which is promising for potential applications in packaging materials.