Project period: March 2016 – February 2019 

Description: The objective is to employ innovative and state-of the art sustainable engineering of nanocellulosic material for applications in eco-friendly packaging. By extending our fundamental understanding of eco-friendly catalytic surface modification technology of heterogeneous polysaccharides, we can invent new sustainable reactions for functionalization of nanocellulose. Next, the modified nanocellulose can be applied in improving the properties (e.g. increased strength, compatibility, permeability) of packaging materials. Finally, sustainable eco-engineering of the packaging material could further change the properties towards hydrophobicity resulting in “green” packaging materials with sufficient barriers against oxygen, water vapor and microrganisms.