Mainly composed of fibers and parenchymal cells with strikingly different chemical compositions and
cell wall structures, bamboo represents an important alternative resource for bio-refinery. Therefore,
this study proposes a potentially novel, low-energy consumption approach for producing high-quality
nanocellulose fibrils (NCFs) made from bamboo at large scale. For this purpose, bamboo pulping sheets
(mainly composed of fibers) and bamboo processing residues (mainly composed of parenchymal cells)
were chosen as starting materials from which NCFs were isolated with a simple high-pressure homogenization
process. Wet chemical analysis, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and microtensile tests
were applied to investigate the effects different cell types had on the properties of prepared NCFs, as well
as the amount of energy required to produce them. The results show that the energy required for isolating
NCFs from parenchymal cells was significantly lower than that from bamboo fibers, while the quality of
NCFs produced from the two types of cells were similar. In addition to the relative ease of the procedure
and the low-energy required, as bamboo processing residues produced in a number of industrial bamboo
applications normally contain a high ratio of parenchymal cells and can be obtained at relatively low
costs, this represents a very promising source of raw material for the production of NCFs.