PAPER TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL FiberLean MFC grinders for the integrated production of MFC in the paper and board industry. David Skuse, Managing Director, FiberLean Technologies Limited

PAPER TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL FiberLean MFC grinders for the integrated production of MFC in the paper and board industry. David Skuse, Managing Director, FiberLean Technologies Limited
INTRODUCTION:
Use of MFC in paper and board allows generally improved sheet mechanical properties and lower porosity and hence better coating
hold-out. Applications include graphic papers, white outer packaging layers, specialty papers, tissue, and various food service applications
(1). Typically, cost savings of greater than €20/ tonne of paper are achieved in relevant situations.
However, whilst the use of MFC in the paper and board
industry has been explored for many years, the uptake has been
slow despite the undoubted technical benefits. Obstacles to uptake
have included:
•
Issues with complexity and reliability of MFC production
equipment.
•
Lack of regulatory clearance, in particular, food contact
clearance for MFC.
•
Lack of availability of MFC for running adequate
production trials before committing to on-site
production.
•
The relatively high cost of MFC.
These obstacles have now been removed:
•
FiberLean MFC grinders use simple, reliable stirred
media mill technology to produce low cost, high
performance MFC from a wide range of virgin and
recycled chemical pulps.
•
The resultant MFC has a coarse macrostructure along
with a high level of surface micro and nano 昀椀brillation.
This allows improved performance
and cost savings compared to MFC
produced using other techniques.
•
After an extensive regulatory
programme, MFC from FiberLean
MFC grinders now has broad food
contact clearance.
•
Multi-tonne quantities of MFC are
available from a central production
facility for running trials and interim
supply.
•
On-site MFC production using
FiberLean MFC grinders can be
integrated into the wet-end of
paper production for cost effective
production.
Production of MFC using FiberLean MFC grinders
Introduction
FiberLean MFC grinders are stirred media mills (Figure 1),
they show bene昀椀ts compared to alternative technologies for MFC
production. They are easy to operate in a continuous, single pass
production mode, with high throughputs compared to the footprint
and low capital cost. Furthermore, stirred media mills are reliable
and have high plant availability, as they do not rely on precisionengineered components for 昀椀brillation which can be expensive to
replace, nor do they use narrow ori昀椀ces that are easy to block. No
chemical additives are used.
The grinding vessel comprises a chamber equipped with an
impeller and partially 昀椀lled with grinding media beads. Fibrillation
occurs when cellulose 昀椀bers are trapped between colliding media
particles. The MFC product leaves the grinder through door screens,
located in the walls of the chamber, that retain the grinding media.
The high media surface area facilitates ef昀椀cient 昀椀brillation, and the
wide range of operating variables and conditions allows tuneable
production. This allows the production of high quality MFC from a
wide range of feed pulps.
Figure 1: Schematic of FiberLean MFC grinder.
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