As another academic year came to a close in June, the Renewable Bioproducts Institute compiled a list of highlights to be included in President Bud Peterson’s annual Institute Address. RBI-affiliated faculty made tremendous strides and demonstrated innovative thinking in their individual areas of research, including energy, electronics, carbon fibers, nanocellulose and nanocrystals, among others.

Among the highlights of the year are:

RBI produced a short film, "Reimaging Bioproducts Industries," spotlighting its three strategic thrusts – Pulp & Paper Operational Excellence, Biocomposites & Nanomaterials and Biochemicals & Biofuels. Watch the video.

In a comment article published April 26 in the journal Nature, two researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology suggest seven energy-intensive separation processes they believe should be the top targets for research into low-energy purification technologies.

http://rbi.gatech.edu/news/seven-chemical-separations-change-world

Researchers at Georgia Tech’s Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics (COPE) and Renewable Bioproducts Institute are developing paper-based electronics — organic solar cells, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), and organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) — fabricated on cellulose-based substrates that can be recycled easily.

http://rbi.gatech.edu/news/rbi-cope-developing-paper-based-electronics

Georgia Tech’s Renewable Bioproducts Institute set another record this year at its annual executive conference, April 5-6, with registration hitting more than 150, including Tech students and faculty, researchers from a variety of other academic institutions, national laboratory representatives, government agencies, associations and private enterprise.

http://rbi.gatech.edu/renewable-bioproducts-institute-annual-conference-sets-attendance-record-highlights-technology

The Institute of Paper Chemistry Foundation Inc. and the Georgia Tech Foundation Inc. have announced a $1 million grant to establish the Institute of Paper Chemistry Legacy Endowment Fund. The fund is being established in recognition of the Institute of Paper Chemistry’s (IPC) educational and leadership legacy and will be maintained as an endowment fund for support of Georgia Tech’s Renewable Bioproducts Institute (RBI). It will be directed to student and faculty initiatives and programs that enhance the mission of RBI as well as advance forest-related industries.

http://rbi.gatech.edu/news/renewable-bioproducts-institute-receives-1-million-grant

Georgia Tech Professional Education has partnered with the Georgia Tech Renewable Bioproducts Institute (RBI) and the Georgia Tech College of Engineering to offer a professional master’s degree in manufacturing leadership (PMML), the first of its kind in Georgia.

http://rbi.gatech.edu/news/georgia-tech-launches-states-first-professional-masters-degree-manufacturing-leadership

Yulin Deng and his team at Georgia Tech have developed a low-temperature electrolytic technology that can harvest hydrogen fuel from nearly all types of biomass.

http://rbi.gatech.edu/news/harvesting-hydrogen-tough-biomass

A research team at the Georgia Institute of Technology has developed a novel technique that sets a new milestone for the strength and modulus of carbon fibers. This alternative approach is based on an innovative technique for spinning polyacrylonitrile (PAN), an organic polymer resin used to make carbon fibers.

http://www.news.gatech.edu/2015/07/22/innovative-method-improves-strength-and-modulus-carbon-fibers

A team of RBI affiliated faculty – including Satish Kumar, has discovered a co-solvent based approach to achieve cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) dispersions in liquid media and in polymers. The importance of this discovery is that this method can be used to easily and relatively economically process CNCs in the un-aggregated state. This method can also be used to make CNC based nano composites with good properties (see item #2).  View “Individually Dispersed Wood-Based Cellulose Nanocrystals” as well as the Supporting Information. Using the dispersion method, Kumar and others have processed polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers containing up to 40 wt% CNC with good properties.  This is the first study of such a high concentration of nano reinforcement in PAN (or any other polymer) processed into good property fibers. For example, carbon nanotube(CNT) containing PAN fibers have been processed only with up to 20 wt%, and these PAN/CNT fibers show significant reduction in strain to failure as compared to PAN fibers. i.e, at such high CNT loading, they become very brittle. On the other hand, PAN/CNC (even at 40% CNC) show no decrease in strain to failure, as compared to PAN. These results should prove important in reinforcing broader class of polymers with CNCs, without making them brittle (a common draw back with other reinforcements). This result is currently being prepared for submission for publication.  

A group of researchers – including RBI’s Jerry Qi — published a paper in Advanced Functional Materials. By using vitrimer, the team was able to recycle carbon fiber reinforced composites by almost 100%. Read the publication here. The team included Qi, Kai Yu, Qian Shi, Martin L. Dunn and Tiejun Wang. Read “Carbon Fiber Reinforced Thermoset Composite with Near 100% Recyclability.”

A great deal of research was published in the area of cellulose during the previous year by several members of the RBI-affiliated faculty. The highlight of their studies: “The addition of CNC in GF/epoxy composites either as a coating of the glass fibers or as additive to the epoxy resin can result in enhancement of the mechanical properties. As a result, a small amount of CNC i.e., about 0.2 wt% can replace 10wt% of GF in the composite without compromise of the mechanical properties leading to lightweight composites.”

Journal Papers:

• Asadi, M. Miller, S. Sultana, RJ Moon, K. Kalaitzidou. Introducing cellulose nanocrystals in sheet molding compound. Composites: Part A, Vol. 88: 206-215, 2016.‪ 
• A. Asadi, M. Miller, RJ Moon, K. Kalaitzidou. Improving the interfacial and mechanical properties of short glass fiber/epoxy composites by coating the glass fibers with cellulose nanocrystals. Express Polymer Letters, Vol. 10(7): 587–597, 2016.
• A. Asadi, M. Miller, AV. Singh, RJ Moon, K. Kalaitzidou. Lightweight sheet molding compound (SMC) composites containing cellulose nanocrystals. Composites Structures, under review, 2016.

Conference Papers:

• A. Asadi, M. Miller, S. Sultana, RJ Moon, K. Kalaitzidou. Introducing cellulose nanocrystals in sheet molding compounds (SMC). In: ECCM 2016, Munich, Germany, June 26-30, 2016.
• M. Miller, A. Asadi, S. Sultana, RJ. Moon, K. Kalaitzidou. Sheet molding compounds containing cellulose nanocrystals coated glass fibers. In: ECCM 2016, Munich, Germany, June 26-30, 2016.
• Kyriaki Kalaitzidou. Cellulose Nanocrystals: An Approach towards lightweight composites for automotive applications. International Conference on Nanotechnology for Renewable Materials, Grenoble France June 13-16, 2016
• A. Asadi, M. Miller, RJ. Moon, K. Kalaitzidou. Cellulose nanocrystals as reinforcement in glass fiber/epoxy sheet molding compound composites. In: ANTEC 2016, Indianapolis, Indiana, May 23-25, 2016.
• A. Asadi, M. Miller, RJ. Moon, K. Kalaitzidou. Thermo-mechanical, rheological, and interfacial properties of hybrid cellulose nanocrystals-short glass fiber/ epoxy matrix composites. In: IMECE 2015, Houston, USA, November 13-16, 2015.

Two RBI affiliated faculty - Carson Meredith and Sven Behrens, both associate professors, ChBE, published an article in Small, based on RBI funding, that shows how cellulose-derived particles can be used to reconfigure the wetting of interfaces in colloidal multiphase systems.  This is the first time that particles of any type have shown the ability to emulate the action of surfactants by actively altering the wetting of a liquid over a gas phase, and is widely applicable in chemical processing and materials fabrication. Yi Zhang and Abiola Shitta were also co-publishers. Read “Bubble Meets Droplet: Particle-Assisted Reconfiguration of Wetting Morphologies in Colloidal Multiphase Systems.”