EUBCE 2026 - Andrea AGUILAR SANCHEZ - Typha latifolia: An alternative biomass in the Fight Against CO?

Typha latifolia: An alternative biomass in the Fight Against CO?

Short Introductive summary

Rewetting drained peatlands and cultivating wetland-adapted crops through paludiculture can couple climate-mitigation benefits with renewable biomass supply. We investigate Typha latifolia (T. latifolia) grown on rewetted peatlands as a non-wood feedstock for high-value lignocellulosic building blocks. Industry-relevant pulping, bleaching, and microfluidization operations were adapted from wood-processing platforms to develop a pilot-scale route that emphasises high resource efficiency and full biomass valorisation. The resulting lignin-containing cellulose nanofibrils differed from bleached birch-derived cellulose nanofibrils CNF in composition and surface charge and retained selected native extractives, reflecting both feedstock chemistry and pulping strategy. As a proof of application, the typha-derived fibrillar fraction acted as an effective Pickering stabiliser for castor-oil-in-water emulsions, enabling long-term emulsion stability. These findings support cattail-based paludiculture as a pathway to diversify biomass resources while enabling scalable production of functional bio-based materials for formulations such as cosmetics and encapsulation systems.

A. Aguilar Sanchez, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo, FINLAND
T. Virkkala, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo, FINLAND
E. Ikävalko, Aalto University, Espoo, FINLAND
K. Lång, Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Espoo, FINLAND
R. Mäkipää, Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Espoo, FINLAND
M. Österberg, Aalto University, Espoo, FINLAND
T. Tammelin, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo, FINLAND