• Paper

    Yasunori Kikuchi, Associate Professor

A research paper from the joint research project by Assoc. Prof. Kikuchi’s group published at “ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering” by American Chemical Society

For AcCNF/PLA (acetylated cellulose nanofiber-reinforced polylactic acid), which is obtained by acetylating cellulose nanofibers produced from woody biomass and reinforcing polylactic acid with them, a prospective life cycle assessment (LCA) has been conducted. LCA was used to quantify life cycle greenhouse gas emissions (LC-GHG) and cumulative energy demand (CED). The LC-GHG and CED of the future AcCNF/PLA can be calculated by implementing a large-scale chemical plant on the process simulator based on the knowledge obtained from the demonstration experiment. The results show that the environmental impact can be significantly reduced compared to the experimental conditions. In addition, the range of possible LC-GHG and CED with different scale of mechanical kneading processes was also examined.

This study enables the development and selection of materials based on the environmental performance of AcCNF/PLA at the dissemination stage in the future.

Research title:


Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Acetylated Cellulose Nanofiber-reinforced Polylactic Acid Based on Scale-up from Lab-scale Experiments

Joint Researchers:


Yuichiro Kanematsu, Yasunori Kikuchi, Hiroyuki Yano

Journal:


ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering
https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.0c09250

Contact:


Yasunori Kikuchi
Associate Professor, Institute for Future Initiatives
https://ifi.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/people/kikuchi-yasunori/