The Nanocellulose and Packaging Platform develops advanced materials from renewable cellulose resources to replace petroleum-based plastics and enhance sustainable packaging. By utilizing nanocellulose’s unique mechanical, barrier, and rheological properties, we design lightweight, biodegradable, and high-performance packaging solutions.

Nanocellulose and packaging platform aims at developing a new generation of renewable, recyclable, biodegradable high performance fibre materials from sustainable biomass.

Prof. Warren Batchelor is an expert on recyclability, standards and biomass derived nanomaterials. Dr. Batchelor’s research group is heavily focused on the production and application of cellulose nanofibres. These are a new, fully recyclable and biodegradable nanofibre made by breaking down cellulose fibres from wood or agricultural residue. Reducing the fibre diameter by over three orders of magnitude reduces the size of the pores between the fibres, once formed into sheets, greatly improving the performance of the sheet as a barrier to water vapour and oxygen, or as an ultra-filtration membrane in liquid filtration. The pore size can be further reduced by making composites of cellulose nanofibres and nano-particles. Other applications of this versatile material include as an additive in paper manufacture, as a substrate for flexible printed electronics and as reinforcement in modern light-weight composites.

• Biodegradable films – producing nanocellulose-based films with superior oxygen and moisture barrier properties for food packaging.
• Reinforced composites – developing lightweight nanocellulose composites for eco-friendly packaging and structural materials.
• Smart packaging – engineering nanocellulose systems with antimicrobial and sensing functionalities to enhance product safety.