ABSTRACT
The evaluation of the optical properties of papers and composites made from nanocellulose revealed that it is possible to obtain translucent to highly optically transparent materials from nanocellulose, comparable to the optical transparency of some thermoplastic and thermoset polymers as well as glass. For the fabrication of optically transparent nanocellulose papers, the terminology nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) might be more appropriate because very high level of transparency can be reached for cellulose fibre (CNF) having a diameter typically below 15 nm. The chapter describes the fabrication methods reported to fabricate optically transparent nanocellulose composites and the detailed research carried out using either NFC or bacterial cellulose (BC) to design this relatively new class of polymeric composite materials. BC was mostly used as a model material to fabricate the first optically transparent nanocomposites, probably because no energy-intensive process is needed to obtain very fine CNF.
