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

PAPERTECHNOLOGYINTERNATIONAL
Image 1: FiberLean Technologies Limited MFC production facility in Cornwall, UK.
Regulatory clearance of MFC in food contact applications
After more than a decade of work, food contact clearances
are now in place for MFC produced using FiberLean MFC grinders.
Some of these clearances include MFC size parameter
limitations and exclude the use of enzymes during MFC production.
To date, all the MFCs produced using FiberLean MFC grinders, and
FiberLean Technologies Limited production guidance, fall within
these allowances.
There are clearances in place with BfR, FDA and in Canada
and China (1).
Furthermore, extensive work has shown that there are no
negative health effects of using MFC (1) and that MFC is not a
nanomaterial (3).
Availability of MFC press cake for trials
The MFC production process operates at low solids (typically
less than 3%) and MFC cannot be easily dried and re-suspended
at solids contents of greater than about 20%. Twenty percent solids
press cake can be used to run trials for concept validation prior
to installation of an on-site production facility. (However, the high
transportation costs associated with this material precludes most
high volume, paper industry applications.)
FiberLean Technologies Limited operates a production
facility in Cornwall, UK that can produce up to 2000 dry metric
tonnes per year of MFC cake (Figure 10). Typically, MFC cake at ~
20% solids is produced from relevant pulp and shipped to the paper
mill site for production trials (Figure 11).
Integration of MFC production into the paper making process
allows signi昀椀cant cost reduction
FiberLean MFC grinders are easy to operate in continuous,
single pass production mode and are, hence, suitable to be
integrated into the wet-end of the paper making process. This has
been shown to be the lowest cost method for provision of MFC into
papermill operations. Integration into existing mill operations allows
reduction in peripheral equipment and control systems and therefore
reduced capital expenditure and shortened pay back times.
Conclusions
In conclusion, many of the obstacles to the uptake of MFC in
paper and board applications have been removed.
MFC can be produced using FiberLean MFC grinders.
These stirred media mills are easy to operate in a continuous, single
pass production mode, with high throughputs and low capital cost.
The mills are reliable and have high plant availability, as they do not
rely on precision-engineered components for 昀椀brillation and do not
use narrow ori昀椀ces that are easy to block. No chemical additives are
necessary.
FiberLean MFC grinders allow production of coarse
and highly 昀椀brillated MFC from a wide range of chemical pulp
feedstocks. These MFCs offer improved performance compared to
re昀椀ner produced MFCs and retain better during the paper making
process.
The mills are available in several sizes to suit the
applications and the designs are modular. Food contact clearances
are in place for FiberLean MFC grinder produced MFC in most
markets.
MFC press cake at ~ 20% solids is available for trials.
Integration of FiberLean MFC grinders into the wet-end of
the paper mill production process minimises capital expenditure for
provision of MFC into mill operations.
Image 2: MFC at ~20% solids content.
Acknowledgements
This is a short article that encompasses a vast e昀昀ort. The contributions from Lewis Taylor, Chris Bonds, Ben Bulson, David Constance, and
Lars Erlandsson of FiberLean Technologies Limited are greatly acknowledged. Likewise, the ground-breaking work from Vireo Advisors LLC on
regulatory clearance deserves great credit.
References
1.
2.
3.
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David Skuse, FiberLean Technologies Ltd., Micro昀椀brillated Cellulose (MFC) Products from Wet-Stirred Media Mills: Applications in
Paper and Board Products, TAPPICon 2026, 26th – 29th April 2026, Columbus, OH, USA.
Lewis Taylor, FiberLean Technologies Ltd. Optimising Micro昀椀brillated Cellulose Using Stirred Media Mills. TAPPI Nano 2025, International Conference on Nanotechnology for Renewable Materials, 8-11 July 2025, Girona, Spain.
Daniel Hewson, Kathryn Gee, Lenka Koptasikova, Christian Hacker, David Skuse, 2024. EU nano or not nano: An unbiased approach
to classifying FiberLean micro昀椀brillated cellulose. Cellulose, 31, pp.5987-5996. - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-024-05980-z

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