SYNOPSIS

This talk will highlight some of the practical uses of crop-waste. The talk will open with an overview of crop- waste issues in Australia then focus on crop-wastes from soya beans, palm fronds, and bamboo, amongst others. In  particular  the  isolation  and  use  of  nanocellulose  from  these  materials  provides  an  important  commodity. Nanocelluloses consists of nano-sized particles, ranging in size from 5-70 nm in diameter, including cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) and cellulose nanofibers (CNF), which range in average length from 100-250 nm or up to several  micrometres,  respectively.  It  is  a  biodegradable  material  and  has  been  shown  to  possess  negligible cytotoxicity.  The talk will present research on the isolation of nanocellulose and its use in polyurethane hydrogels, and membranes. Analysis of the materials will highlight attenuated total reflectance - infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy,  scanning  electron  microscopy,  thermal  gravimetric  analysis,  X-ray  diffraction  and  compression mechanical tests as useful techniques. Finally, there will be a discussion on the use of waste materials from grape vine prunnings and bamboo as a composite material in particle board for the construction industry.


SPEAKER BIODATA

Amanda Ellis is the Head of Department for Chemical Engineering at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She graduated with a Ph.D (Applied  Chemistry) from  the  University of Technology, Sydney in 2003. After two  postdocs in the USA, including Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and New  Mexico State University she secured a prestigious Foundation of Research Science and Technology Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Industrial  Research Ltd, NZ (now Callaghan Innovations).  

In 2006 Amanda commenced at Flinders University, South Australia as a teaching/research academic in Chemical and Physical Sciences. During this time, she became a full professor (2013), an ARC Future Fellow (2014) and acting Associate Dean of Research for the Faculty of Science and Engineering (2016). In May 2017 she joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Melbourne. She has secured over $20 M in funding from the ARC and non-ARC sources on projects as well as publishing over 145 peer-reviewed publications (>4300 citations) involving  novel  polymer  coatings,  membrane  science,  functionalised  carbon  nanotubes  and  graphene, microfluidics, genotyping and DNA nanotechnology. Currently, she is a Board member of the Royal Australia Chemical Institute (RACI) and an Australia Research Council College of Experts panel member.