Preparation of treelike and rodlike carboxymethylated nanocellulose and their effect on carboxymethyl cellulose films

In this work, carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) with low substitution degree, followed by different posttreatments, was applied to prepare treelike CMC nanofibrils (CMCNFs) and rodlike CMC nanocrystals (CMCNCs), and their performance in CMC composite film was evaluated simultaneously. From transmission electron microscopy results, it was found that the treelike CMCNCFs exhibited a lager aspect ratio compared to the rodlike CMCNCs. As for reinforcing CMC film, 4 wt% was the best adding amount, at this time, the tensile strength of CMC/CMCNFs and CMC/CMCNCs composite films was increased by 72.1% and 47.3%, respectively. Moreover, adding these nanofillers to CMC also could enhance the thermal stability of composite films slightly, while the transmittance of composite films was reduced at the same time. In addition, CMC/CMCNFs film was designed as a packaging box to determine its performance. Therefore, this study could reveal the differences of properties for composites with different types of nanocellulose and provide a foundation for further application of nanocellulose.