Latin American Applied Research 50(2): 59-64 (2020) 59 NANOCELLULOSE AND ITS POTENTIAL USE FOR SUSTAINABLE INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS C. NEGRO, A. BALEA, J.L. SANCHEZ-SALVADOR, C. CAMPANO, E. FUENTE, M.C. MONTE and A. BLANCO Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials, Faculty of Chemistry, Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), 28040 Madrid, Spain cnegro@ucm.es Abstract−− Nanocellulose (NC) and its wide appli- cations have attracted high attention due to its desir- able properties such as high surface area, extraordi- nary mechanical properties, high reactivity and easy modification of NC surface due to the presence of pri- mary hydroxyl groups. NC also presents several envi- ronmental benefits, including high potential availabil- ity because its production is coming from natural sources, renewability and nontoxicity. This paper briefly summarizes some of the activities of the re- search group “Cellulose, Paper and Water Advanced Treatments” from Complutense University of Madrid that were presented in CAIQ 2019, including the main types of NC, the production processes and their char- acterization. Additionally, the most promising NC ap- plications are described such as for paper and board, for wastewater treatment, food and cement-based materials. Moreover, a market perspective of NC is also presented. Keywords−− Nanocellulose, applications, market perspectives, paper, water treatment, food, cement I. INTRODUCTION Cellulose is a linear and natural polymer composed of - β-D-glucopyranose units joined together by β-1-4-glyco- sidic bonds and it has an important structural role in ani- mals and plants. Nanocellulose (NC) can be defined as cellulose in the form of nanostructures, which have at least one dimension between 1 and 100 nm (Blanco et al., 2018). NC can be obtained using a top-down approach by defibrillation of cellulose fibers from different raw mate- rials such as wood, plant fibers, tunicates or agricultural by-products. Chemical, mechanical and/or enzymatic pretreatments prior to mechanical defibrillation allow to facilitate the separation of fibers increasing the NC yield and reducing the cost (Mondal, 2017). Moreover, NC is also produced following a bottom-up approach in which bacteria produce glucose units that extruded out of their membrane and self-assembly forming the nanofibers (Campano et al., 2016). NC has unique properties due to its combination of the nanoscale dimensions (e.g., high surface area, lightweight, stiffness, high strength) and in- herent properties of the cellulose (e.g., biodegradability, renewability, sustainability, high potential availability) when NC is produced from natural sources such as wood, plants or agro-waste by products. In addition, NC has a high reactive surface of hydroxyl groups which is suita- ble for surface modification (Chin et al., 2018). Anselm Payen was the first to isolate cellulose from plants and various woods in the 19 th century (Fisher, 1989). However, it was not until the last decade when NC has emerged as a promising material. From 2006 to 2018, the total number of scientific publications and patent doc- uments with the search term “nanocellulose” was 3163, 2277, 1286 and 995 using Web of Science (WOS), Cur- rent Contents Connect (CCC), BIOSIS Previews or MELINE® databases, respectively (Fig. 1). The number of publications since 2006 addressing NC, broken down by country, is shown in Fig. 2, with a clear leadership of China and the United States with 691 and 527 publications, respectively. Figure 1. Number of publications with the search term “nano- cellulose” using different databases (WOS=Web of Science; CCC= Current Contents Connect; BIOSIS; MEDLINE®). Figure 2. Number of publications related to nanocellulose per country from 2006 until 2018 (adopted from WOS database; search data: 10 September 2019).