Technological Innovation

List of Accomplishments

Dr. Venditti has been extremely active in collaborating with industry to develop new technologies. These collaborations have included the development of intellectual property, the development of new technologies to meet industry needs, and technical consulting. Stemming from his research, Venditti has had two patents issued and one other patent filing has been executed in 2015. Current research involves a partnership with Tethis to develop new products from wood based carbohydrates based on IP developed by Venditti and collaborators. Venditti serves on the scientific advisory board of Tethis.

One of his research successes involved the development of sensors for recovered paper sorting, in collaboration with the MSS Corporation and supported by the DOE. In the project, sensors were developed to distinguish the lignin content and other properties of recovered paper. The technology developed in the research has been directly used in the most modern automatic paper sorting system commercially available today, the MSS MultiwaveTM Sensor. The sensor is the world’s first automated NIR, color, gloss, and lignin sorting system able to sort paper and plastics at speeds of 1,200 ft/min. The lignin detection part of the sensor that was developed based on our findings significantly improves the sensor’s ability to detect different paper grades.

Venditti has also done consulting work for industry. This includes product characterization work for Proctor and Gamble in the area of tissue making, technical consulting in the area of paper screens, environmental process analysis for a paper company in Wisconsin, process analysis (wood, pulping, bleaching, papermaking) and environmental life cycle analysis for a major paper company, and product technical consulting for a medical device company. Venditti has recently had a major project to do technical, economic and environmental life cycle analysis work for Eastman Chemical.

Venditti currently is the director and teacher in the highly rated Hands-On Workshop for Pulp and Paper Basics, co-sponsored by TAPPI, which has trained about 1500 industrial employees over the past 20 years.

A series of research articles have been published pertaining to the behavior of pressure sensitive adhesives in paper recycling. Problems with adhesive contaminates in paper recycling has remained the most critical challenge in the field and is attributed to over $6 million in losses per year. My research group has clearly elucidated the following:
The viscoelastic nature of PSA’s and its impact on extrusion in pressure gradients
The viscoelastic nature of PSA material and its impact on communition in shear
The effect of the surface characteristics of PSA and its impact on deposition and agglomeration

The results have made a significant impact in the area of paper recycling. First, the recycling research community had previously thought that folding, and not extrusion, was possible in flow through a slot. We have however, showed that extrusion does occur and the conditions under which it operates. This has impacted researcher’s activities in this field. Further, adhesive manufacturers have been supplied with extremely important information pertaining to the proper design of adhesive materials. This understanding has also been used by paper recycling equipment designers to develop better processing equipment and operating conditions. Second, the communition of PSA particles has been elucidated and the effect of flow and temperature conditions described. This has been directly utilized by equipment designers and technology practitioners in improving existing processes.

In the area of the development of new bio-based polymer materials I have secured several grants and have published several research articles. With collaborators, some important composition-molecular structure-properties relationships have been developed for starch based microcellular foams. The findings allow researchers to understand and utilize understandings to design microcellular foams with different pore structure, brightness, and water interactions.

Complementary work has further demonstrated how thermal analysis can be used to monitor water-bio based polymer interactions useful in the characterization of these materials. A manuscript describing a part of this research was awarded the Best Paper Award for 2007 from TAPPI Journal. Several companies have adopted our techniques to analyze the drying behavior of different fibers on their paper machines, including soliciting technical service work from our department in this area.

Research with hemicellulose or starch combined with citric acid and chitosan has led to a novel set of biomaterials that have significant water absorption, salt uptake and metal adsorption properties. This work has led to a patent application, several peer reviewed articles and a start-up company, Tethis. Tethis develops and markets super-absorbent biodegradable foams and powders in various water treatment industries under the product name Tethex. Tethis has had significant funding to support six full-time employees in order to commercialize the materials that were developed in the research.

Issued Patents:

Modified Carbohydrate-Chitosan Compounds, Methods of Making the Same and Methods of Using the Same, R. A. Venditti, Joel J. Pawlak, A. Salam, U.S. Patent Number US 8,975,387, March 10, 2015.

Porous Fibers from Natural/Synthetic Polymer Blends, J. F. Kadla, R. D. Gilbert, R. A. Venditti, S. Kubo, US Patent Number US 6,765,028 B2, July 20, 2004.

Patents Applications:

Ronalds W. Gonzalez, Franklin J. Zambrano, Hasan Jameel, Richard A. Venditti, and Lokendra Pal, REDUCED FIBER TISSUE PAPER AND METHODS OF MANUFACTURE, Serial No.:62/772,838, Filing Date: November 29, 2018.

Fatty acid derivatives of lignin and uses thereof, R. A. Venditti, S. N. Pawar, A. Ayoub, H. M. Chang, H. Jameel, US Patent Application Number 62/156,599, filed May 4, 2015.

Wax composition and improved pellet composition as a processing aid wooden fuel pellets. Additionally, improved processing of wood pellets with higher rate and energy savings from renewable sourced wood pulp. In conjunction with Exxon Mobil, 2017.

Reduced fiber tissue paper and methods of manufacture, Serial No.: 62/772,838, Filing date: November 29, 2018. Ronalds W. Gonzalez, Franklin J. Zambrano, Hasan Jameel, Richard A. Venditti, and Lokendra Pal.