VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed a method for customising and introducing new properties, such as moisture proofing or electrical conductivity, to fibre-containing products, opening up new uses for lignin fibres from wood and other natural sources.
The chemo-enzymatic modification method will enable manufacturers to better tailor the properties of fibres, depending what they are to be processed into. The ability to make the fibre moisture resistant opens up new opportunities for using wood fibres in the packaging, for example.
The method is more environmentally-friendly than existing approaches to chemically modifying lignin, and can easily be integrated into existing manufacturing and finishing processes.
“In the future, tailored wood fibres may present a viable alternative, for example, to synthetic fibres in various industrial composites,” says Anna Suurnäkki, Senior Research Scientist at VTT.
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