Hydrophobisation of pulp fiber with multilayering of saponified rosin and PAH, 2010 TAPPI International Conference on Nanotechnology for the Forest Product Industry

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Cellulose fiber has been used as raw material for papermaking because of its whiteness, self-bonding ability by hydrogen bond, chemical inertness, higher tensile stiffness, etc. With the abundance in nature and sustainability, the application fields of cellulose will be consistently increased. Nevertheless, its hydrophillicity can be one of obstacles to make green composite or packaging material with barrier property. Therefore, the modification of the surface property is required. LbL (Layer-by-Layer) multilayering technology can be adopted to make hydrophobic cellulose fiber. It is the technology that the surface of a substrate is layered by successive depositions of cationic polyelectrolyte and anionic polyelectrolyte (1). It is highly effective in modifying surface properties of material and has potential to be applied in various fields (2,3). In this study, we aimed to manufacture hydrophobic fiber by Layer-by-Layer multilayering with poly allyamine hydrochloride (PAH) and saponified rosin, and to investigate its effect on hydrophobicity and physical properties of paper. Disintegrated hardwood pulp fibers were fractionated by using screen equipped with 400-mesh wire to remove colloidal and dissolved material. Then, the fibers were successively treated by PAH and saponified rosin to 9 layers, and handsheets with grammage of 100 g/m2 were made from the treated fibers at each layering step. Adsorption of rosin on pulp fiber was examined by FT-IR and SEM. Hydrophobicity of the handsheet was evaluated by means of contact angle measurement and 900 s Cobb sizing degree. In addition, we evaluated mechanical properties of handsheets including tensile and tear strength.