Cellulose is a key material in the biosphere. Every plant makes cellulose. It’s what adds the toughness and strength to wood. We were able to extract the nanocrystalline cellulose from these materials, and we were particularly interested in the material properties of cellulose. It was thanks to NSERC Discovery Grants that we were able to continue looking at the properties of this material.

NSERC has supported Derek Gray and his students for many years, and they’ve become the foundation on which this organization that we call CelluForce is built upon. One of the remarkable elements about this material is its very low toxicology profile, which means that we can manufacture it without any concern in Canada, and it can be used in any application in Canada.

The industry sectors include, at the moment, automotive and aerospace industries that are interested in the strength properties, how it can strengthen some of the materials that are used in cars, aircraft. The oil recovery industry is also interested in it, because some of the properties of this material change the viscosity of water. Nanocrystalline cellulose can form gels, which are of interest both in the pharmaceutical industry and in the food industry.

Well, Derek has been critical. He developed the basic manufacturing process, which we’ve built upon and put the design engineering to.

Our initial problem, with the development of markets for nanocrystalline cellulose, was we never could make enough in the lab to supply it to the people that were interested for any given application. It’s a very exciting time, because now, with the availability of large quantities of material, relatively large quantities of material, from CelluForce, I know that there’ll be lots of people, both in academic and industrial research, that will be wanting to exploit some of the properties of this material.