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Insights from Dr. Emily Cranston
Interviewed by: Pearl Islam
Organized/Written by: Amber Lee
As the world pushes to create sustainable solutions to modern problems, there exists relentless research and innovation to improve every aspect of our lives—research we may never know. One such effort is the transformative work being done in labs around the world, shaping a more sustainable future.
Here, we bring the voices, thoughts, and ideas of researchers at the forefront of the field.
Behind the effort to further improve nanocellulose in popular commercial use is Dr. Cranston, a distinguished researcher and professor known for her pioneering work in the use of bio-based components and nanoparticles from nature. By breaking down materials like wood pulp or agricultural waste into their basic components, Dr. Cranston and her researchers can reconstruct them into new structures that offer a sustainable alternative to petrochemicals and plastic.
We met with Dr. Cranston to discuss her perspective on the potential applications of her research, the challenges throughout the process, and the future of the sustainability movement as a whole.
1. What are some of the barriers from nanocellulose becoming commonly used in commercial products?
Nanocellulose is already used in commercial products but many applications are large-volume (e.g. processing aids used by engineering companies) not high-value or every-day use by consumer-type products.
A few barriers are the high costs and need for new manufacturing methods whenever new “ingredients” are introduced. The public perception around using nanomaterials may also hinder progress (even though these ones are generally safe).
Technical barriers include controlling distribution of nanocellulose in liquid and solid environments (either after drying or because they are incompatible with the surrounding materials) and the fact that cellulose takes up water over time, so properties of nanocellulose-based products can change; for example, they don’t make good packaging materials because they swell and then barrier properties are reduced.
2. There are so many potential applications for nanocellulose in various industries. What application of nanocellulose do you believe is the closest to being implemented/ has the most potential?
Cellulose likes water, so working on nanocellulose in its native form in water is the “lowest hanging fruit” for commercial applications. (The other option is to chemically modify the surface of nanocellulose so it is more compatible with plastics and organic solvents.) My top new nanocellulose applications that are moving towards implementation are water-based coatings and adhesives, and use as encapsulation agents for food and cosmetic products.
3. How does your project bring out the aspect of sustainability?
Great question, since sustainability can mean so many things.
We try to follow the principles of Green Chemistry and Green Engineering in all of our research. Specifically, nanocellulose is derived from nature (plants, bacteria, fungi and animals too, but mostly we use plant cellulose) so it is renewable and “green”. We even use “waste” biomass, like pine-beetle killed wood and oat hulls, so forest and agricultural residue that cannot be used for other things.
All of our processing is water-based and in one case, where we were making foam insulation for buildings, we even used ocean water to lower the energy needed for water purification. We are designing products that are normally biodegradable/compostable or recyclable, have low energy demands, and have a longer serviceable lifetime than the products they are replacing.
4. What were the most challenging parts of the research?
Research is always exciting and challenging because we don’t know what we will find. If we already knew, it wouldn’t be research.
Challenges are opportunities and the drive to make all materials, devices and processes sustainable means we have huge shoes to fill. (Note that we aren’t just aiming for “sustainable”, but also cheaper and better performing!). In my work on bio-based materials specifically, using materials from nature means that our starting materials are not always exactly the same, so reproducibility and predictability can be challenging.
5. Is there anything in the future that you look forward to which would impact the sustainability movement?
I think the time is now to move more green technologies from the lab to commercial applications because of the public demand for more environmentally-friendly products and the crucial impacts on human health and the environment that these discoveries may have.
The way to do this better and faster is through interdisciplinary research in collaboration with different stakeholders/industrial partners, and a strategy where the underlying social, economic, policy, and regulatory aspects along with robust lifecycle analysis are all considered throughout the entire development process.
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