CORRELATIONS BETWEEN PHYSICOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES IN MATERIALS COMPRISING MICROFIBRILLATED CELLULOSE : CORRELATIONS BETWEEN PHYSICOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES IN MATERIALS COMPRISING MICROFIBRILLATED CELLULOSE

Sammanfattning: Microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) films have gained a lot of industrial interest lately dueto their good barrier properties and good mechanical strength. In this study it wasinvestigated whether rheological characteristics and conductivity of MFC dispersionscomprised of different MFC grades could be correlated to tensile properties of the MFCfilms produced from the corresponding MFC dispersion. A rheological characterizationmethod was developed for MFC dispersions with 3 wt% MFC and a secret additiveusing a dynamic rotational rheometer and a smooth “plate to plate” geometry. Themethod consisted of an amplitude sweep, a frequency sweep, and a controlled shearrate measurement. Two predicting OPLS models were created in SIMCA: model 1correlated values from rheological measurements and ionic conductivity to tensileproperties and model 2 correlated MFC grades to tensile properties. A slight correlationbetween MFC rheology and tensile properties could be observed, but due to the lowpredictive ability of model 1 (Q2=0.47) it was deemed that the model was insufficientas a tool for facilitated predictions of new samples. It was concluded that tensileproperties are more correlated to the composition of MFC dispersions than whatrheological characteristics and ionic conductivity the dispersions display, based on thegood predictive ability of model 2 (Q2=0.59).