Leo Schörghuber Preis 2015 for Dr. Hatem Abushammala

Dr. Hatem Abushammala receives the Leo Schörghuber Preis 2015 at the “Münchner Holzkolloquium” for his doctoral dissertation entitled “Novel Ionic Liquid-Mediated Technologies for the Extraction of Nanocellulose Directly from Wood”

Hatem Abushammala’s dissertation exemplifies the innovations made possible by bridging the traditional field of wood science with the promises of nanotechnology. Devising a facile one-pot extraction process of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) from wood, Abushammala’s doctoral research at the Chair of Forest Biomaterials has opened new avenues to add value to any lignocellulosic waste stream in the forest product industry. This innovation, validated by a patent application (EP1515769) and numerous peer-reviewed publications, was made possible by his systematic approach: an initial fundamental study of the impact of ionic liquids on wood swelling and viscoelasticity proved useful to screen the efficacy of these chemicals for wood softening and defibrillation (Abushammala et al. 2015a). Abushammala then ambitioned to pulp wood, hydrolyze cellulose amorphous fractions and preserve wood cellulose native crystals all at once and with only one chemical. Amazingly, he succeeded when studying in detail the potency of imidazolium acetate ionic liquid on wood (Abushammala et al. 2015b).

One shall read his publications to understand the tricks, mechanisms and advantages of the process. However here suffices to highlight the advantages of the method: one can start directly from wood instead of pure cellulose pulp; it is very easy to recover the CNCs without any purification step, otherwise a bottleneck in CNCs production; Finally, the CNCs directly produced from wood have aspect ratios (L/d) about twice those generally reported for wood CNCs. Practically, this means that this new ionic liquid-based process can convert any wood or lignocellulosic waste into high-value cellulose nanocrystals in a facile process.

All these findings were highlighted at the Münchner Holzkolloquium on Friday Nov. 20, 2015, where Dr. Abushammala was honored as one of the two recipients of the Leo Schörghuber Preis 2015. With a donation of 3000 euros, the Leo Schörghuber Award from the Leo Schörghuber Stiftung recognizes outstanding work in the field of wood and wood products, primarily doctoral, master and bachelor studies. The award committee chaired by the President of TU München, Prof. Herrmann, selected two dissertations this year.

Congratulations to Hatem for this outstanding recognition and thank you to our Münchner colleagues for the warm welcome.

For further reading

H. Abushammala, J. F. Pontes, G. H. Gomes, A. Osorio-Madrazo, R. Thiré, F. Pereira, M.-P. Laborie. Swelling, Viscoelastic, and Anatomic Studies of Ionic Liquid-Swollen Norway Spruce as a Screening Tool towards Ionosolv Pulping. Holzforschung. 2015a; 69(9): 4607-4619.
H. Abushammala, H. Winter, I. Krossing, M.-P. Laborie. On the Prevalence of Side Reactions during Ionosolv Pulping of Norway Spruce with 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium Acesulfamate. Cellulose. 2014; 21(6): 4607-4619.
H. Abushammala, I. Krossing, M.-P. Laborie. Ionic Liquid-Mediated Technology for Cellulose Nanocrystals Production directly from Wood. Carbohydrate Polymers. 2015b; 134: 609-616.
H. Abushammala, M-P. Laborie. Ionic Liquid-Mediated Production of Cellulose Nanocrystals Directly from Wood. 2015. European Patent, EP1515769.