The Application of Polysaccharides and Their Derivatives in Pigment, Barrier, and Functional Paper Coatings

Abstract

As one of the most abundant natural polymers in nature, polysaccharides have the potential to replace petroleum-based polymers that are difficult to degrade in paper coatings. Polysaccharide molecules have a large number of hydroxyl groups that can bind strongly with paper fibers through hydrogen bonds. Chemical modification can also effectively improve the mechanical, barrier, and hydrophobic properties of polysaccharide-based coating layers and thus can further improve the related properties of coated paper. Polysaccharides can also give paper additional functional properties by dispersing and adhering functional fillers, e.g., conductive particles, catalytic particles or antimicrobial chemicals, onto paper surface. Based on these, this paper reviews the application of natural polysaccharides, such as cellulose, hemicellulose, starch, chitosan, and sodium alginate, and their derivatives in paper coatings. This paper analyzes the improvements and influences of chemical structures and properties of polysaccharides on the mechanical, barrier, and hydrophobic properties of coated paper. This paper also summarizes the researches where polysaccharides are used as the adhesives to adhere inorganic or functional fillers onto paper surface to endow paper with great surface properties or special functions such as conductivity, catalytic, antibiotic, and fluorescence.

Keywords: coating; derivatives; function; modification; paper; polysaccharide.

Figure 1

Factors affecting the properties of different types of paper coatings.

Figure 2

Chemical structure of cellulose.

Figure 3

Chemical structure of arabinoxylan.

Figure 4

SEM images of paper surface (a,c,e) with magnitude ×500 and cross-sections (b,d,f) with magnitude ×1000 for uncoated paper and paper coated with AX and GAX with coating weight of 12 g/m². (a,b) uncoated paper; (c,d) unmodified AX coated paper; (e,f) GAX coated paper [6] (Reprinted by permission from: Springer, Cellulose, Glutaraldehyde crosslinking of arabinoxylan produced from corn ethanol residuals, Xiang, Z.; Anthony, R.; Lan, W.; Runge, T., 2016).

Figure 5

SEM images of CNF-coated paper:(a) uncoated base paper; paper coated with 2% (b) rCNF and (c) gCNF along with CMC, respectively; paper coated with 3% (d) rCNF and (e) gCNF along with CMC, respectively [49] (Reprinted by permission from: Springer, Cellulose, Cellulose nanofiber/carboxymethyl cellulose blends as an efficient coating to improve the structure and barrier properties of paperboard, Mousavi, S.M.M.; Afra, E.; Tajvidi, M.; Bousfield, D.W.; Dehghanifirouzabadi, M., 2017).

Figure 6

Chemical structure of (a) amylose and (b) amylopectin.

Figure 7

Chemical structure of chitosan.

Figure 8

The chemical structures of three types of alginates.

Figure 9

FE-SEM images of (a) filter paper (FP), (b) filter paper coated with 1% wt chitosan (CH-FP), and (c) Cu⁰ loaded CH-FP [109] (Reprinted by permission from: Springer, Cellulose, Synthesis of zero-valent Cu nanoparticles in the chitosan coating layer on cellulose microfibers: Evaluation of azo dyes catalytic reduction, Kamal, T.; Khan, S.B.; Asiri, A.M., 2016).