Abstract
To replace petroleum-based barriers used in, for example, packaging applications with a bio-based alternative, the sensitivity to moisture must be lowered. The present work describes the fabrication and characterisation of cellulose-based films with remarkably improved oxygen and water-vapour-barrier properties at 80% relative humidity. This was achieved by fabricating films of self- cross- linking fibrillated cellulose after partial periodate oxidation to dialdehyde cellulose. At a relative humidity of 80%, films made of 27% and 44% oxidised cellulose, respectively, showed less than half the water vapour permeability of the untreated reference; 3.8 g·mm/(m2·24 h·kPa) and 3.7 g·mm/(m2·24 h·kPa) compared to 8.0 g·mm/(m2·24 h·kPa). This was presumably due to a lower moisture uptake in the films, and consequently less swelling. In the absence of moisture, films from both unmodified and modified fibrillated cellulose were ideal oxygen barriers, but at a relative humidity of 80%, films based on 27% and 44% converted cellulose had an oxygen permeability of 2.2 ml·Rm/ (m2·24 h·kPa) and 1.8 ml·Rm/(m2·24 h·kPa), respectively, compared to 9.2 ml·Rm/(m2·24 h·kPa) for the non- oxidised material. The cross-linking resulted in an embrittlement of the films, but the 27% oxidised material still had a tensile strength of 148 MPa and a tensile strain at break of 2.0%, which is sufficient in, for example, many packaging applications.
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