FiberLean™: An innovative Composite Material

Kapil Dev*

Co-Author

Andrew Findlay* and Leslie Mclain*

About the Author

Mr. Kapil Dev is now the Technical Service Manager for Paper and Board in the lmerys Carbonates Division
(India) . He is a Paper Technologist from Yamunanagar and an MBA in Marketing . Before joining lmerys, he
worked in the Production Deptt. in ABC Paper Mill followed by Ciba as Technical Support Manager. In his
present assignment with lmerys, Kapil provides Technical and Application support and service to customers
in India as well as the Asia Pacific region.

· 1merys Minerals, Pune , Maharashtra, India.

PlPerex. 2017 FiberLean™: An innovative Composite Material

Abstract
This presentation describes a novel process of producing micro-fibrillated cellulose (MFC) by eo-
grinding in the presence of mineral , and the subsequent performance of the composite product,
called Fiberlean™, when added to the wet-end of a paper machine. lt can be produced on-site at
a paper or board mill in units of robust and reliable equipment of relevant industrial scale using mill
pulp and can be tailor made for specific customer needs. The mineral acts as a very fine grinding
media and no pre-treatment of fibre is required .

The MFC/mineral composite product offers paper and board producers simultaneous benefits of
savings in variable cost, increased machine efficiency and improved physical properties of the
final product. This is possible because the composite allows significant replacement of fibre with
filler whilst increasing wet tensile and internal bond properties of most grades . The additional filler
loading mitigates the retardation in drainage seen with MFC and production rates on paper machines
over a wide range of basis weights.

The amount of mineral present in the MFC/mineral composite can be modified depending on the
final usage. Lower amounts of mineral allow maximum strength improvement, and higher amounts
allow best possible cost-savings and improvement in coating hold out and optical and surface
properties. The presentation includes case studies which highlight the impact of on coated woodfree
paper, white top liner and folding boxboard and demonstrate the various quality benefits achievable
with this technology.

Keywords: Microfibrilated Cellulose, Paper and Board, Increased filler loading

Introduction
The benefits of mineral fillers in fibre based paper and packaging are well known and documented (1 ). These
include: improved optics, surface aspect, printability, smoothness and cost reduction due to replacement of
fibre by mineral. However, high amounts of filler also results in reduced strength and bulk of the final paper and
reduced wet strength of the paper web as it passes through the paper machine (2-4}.

There are many chemical additives known within the industry to increase dry strength; for example cationic
starch, and synthetic strength resins (5) however too high a concentration of these can negatively impact the
chemical and charge balance of the system , thus affecting sheet formation and quality. They also have little
impact on the wet strength of the paper web during production.

A recent alternative material that is proposed to overcome many of the negatives associated with use of high
filler amounts as well as maximisingwet and dry paper strength is microfibrilated cellulose (MFC) . However
conventional routes of production of MFC are both very expensive and limited in volume.

This paper introduces a new technology for the production of MFC which overcomes many of the problems
with traditional MFC. We describe this new material and give examples of its performance in several industrial
trials which demonstrate its potential for cost effective, high levels of fibre replacement.

Traditional MFC

Micro fibrillated cellulose was first made in the 1980's by Herrick et al. (6) and Turbak et al. (7) who demonstrated
that the individual fibres in cellulose pulp could be separated (defibrillated} in to a network of much small
individual fibrils , thus creating a fibrous gel with a very high surface area and a very high number of potential
bonding sites (8). An analogy might be the separation of a single piece of rope in to all its constituent strands
to form a high volume, low density entangled 3D web of fibre.

The production of traditional MFC requires a very high energy demand (>25-30 MW hr/T) and involves expensive
and sophisticated grinding or homogenising equipment. lt is therefore expensive and has a very high capital
investment to capacity ratio.

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FiberLean ™: An innovative Composite Material f.Llperex 201 7

Improvements to the initial invention include pre-treatments to soften up the fibres (9) which significantly
reduces the energy demand but does not influence the CAPEX to capacity ratio. In addition these products
are often difficult to handle being produced at very low solids with a gel like structure.

Fiberlean™

Fiberlean TM is a patented invention which uses mineral particles to facil itate the defibrillation cellulose fibres.
Each mineral particle is uses as a micro-grinding site to efficiently transmit grinding energy in to the fibre .

The use of mineral to provide this highly targeted input of energy significantly reduces the cost of the process,
and , especially in paper making applications, the mineral does not need to be removed after grinding, but
actually provides additional benefits. Indeed the ultimate aim often is to increase the total amount of mineral
in the paper since it contributes to the improved opacity, printability and reduced cost of the final product.

Other advantagesinclude the fact that the Fiberlean™ process can produce high volumes of mineral I MFC
composite with relatively low CAPEX investment, and that if necessary, the product can also be dewatered to
30% solids and then re-dispersed without issue. Onsite production at a paper or board mill is easy since no
pre-treatment of fibre is required and the process only requires readily standard and routinely available equipment
that is well known in the mineral and pulp processing industries.

The Fiberlean™ process generates a network of fibrils and mineral particles in which the fibrils are relatively
coarse with low surface charge. This allows good retention of both fibre fines and filler and good entrapment of
filler within the paper web with minimal impact on wet end chemistry. The increased bonding potential allows
higher interfibre bond strength thus allowing more filler to be included for the same final paper strength. The
Fiberlean TM process is effective with all types of minerals as shown in Fig.1 .

Figure 1: Fiberlean TM examples using different minerals

(a= talc, b=PCC, C=kaolin, d=GCC) .

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PlPefex 201 7 FiberLean ™: An innovative Composite Material

Results and Discussion

The potential of Fiberlean TM™

As outlined in earlier section , higher amounts of filler will results in increased light scattering and therefore
increase brightness and opacity. A series of papers containing filler loading levels between 0 and 20% and
MFC between 0 and 4% were produced at a pilot paper machine using xx furnish (need details}. Fig.2a plots
the relationship between sheet gsm and filler loading level for a constant opacity of 84.0. The presence of MFC
does not influence the light scattering potential and the curve is almost linear with increasing filler concentrations.
However if such changes were made with simple addition of filler alone, then paper strength would be dramatically
reduced. Fig. 2b shows the same gsm vs filler loading curve at a constant opacity of 84.0, but with circled
points indicating how, with the addition of MFC, sheet tensile strength can be maintained at 1.5kN/m even at
lower gsm and higher filler loading levels. In this example addition of 4 % MFC allows a reduction of sheet gsm
from 63 to 48gsm and a filler increase from 8% to 21 % with constant opacity and tensile strength , although it
should be noted that with such extreme changes , other properties such as sheet bulk and stiffness will not
remain constant.

90
110 1c---------i
~ ~~----------------------
fro~~~~~~~
Jro~~~~~~-------------­
j 60 t--------"""""""'....::: ---1..::.-j-='-=-...J.j
A~~------~~~~---------­
't
\
~~~------------~~~~~--

Figure 2a: GSM vs. filler loading for Figure 2b: Equivalent gsm vs. filler loading
constant opacity. for constant tensile strength.

The visual appearance of MFC in a high filled paper is shown in Fig.3. The impact on improved smoothness
surface strength and reduced porosity is obvious. The reduced porosity might be anticipated to give issues of
poorer evacuation of water during drying, but in practice this should be more than compensated by the higher
filler loading levels and reduced overall concentrations of fibre.

Figure 3: Surface of a highly filled paper with Fiberlean™ .

Industrial trial results
The following section presents results from industrial trials in 3 different applications where Fiberlean TM has
been demonstrated to extend the limitations of standard paper and board production .

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FiberLean ™: An innovative Composite Material PlfJerelC 2017

Increased filler loading of uncoated and coated basepaper for Fibre replacement (high ash)

The previous section focused on the maximum benefits that could be achieved when considering a simple
triangle of opacity/gsm and tensile strength, however in practice, filler loading levels in uncoated and coated
papers are limited by many factors including machine runnability and the strength and bulk of the final paper.

A key factor in good machine runnability is often the wet tensile strength of the paper web as it passes through
the machine. Inclusion of MFC improves the wet tensile strength which results in good paper machine runnability
even at high filler levels (Fig.4.)

+Reference at 20 and 28% Filler D Flberlean, 28% Filler

90
i 88 ,Aif("'

lto
86
~
~-

.
.5
': 82
84
~
;:.. ~
; 80
~
~
~ 78
" 76
,...... ~
:t 74
72
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
% MFC Added to Sheet

Figure 4: Wet TEA index.

As demonstrated in the previous section inclusion of MFC in a paper will increase dry tensile strength and,
since it bridges between fibres , will also reinforce the internal Z direction bond strength (Scott Bond) after
drying thus increasing the resistance to delamination.

The loss of bulk in highly filled papers is intrinsic to the ratio of mineral to fibre - as fibre is removed and
replaced by high density mineral bulk will inevitable decrease. However since higher loading levels improve
smoothness and surface properties there is potential for recovering bulk by secondary changes such as
optimisation of refining and modification of the water removal steps (pressing) and finishing (calendering) .

18
16
~ 14
'0
As an 8l'efll98 we reached 9% ller
ncrease from 1,n"'o MFC addition.
fi
:lE
12 Our target is 10"1o ller ncrease
'0 from 2"'o MFC addillon.
i 10
•
=
l!! 8

!~Llllll~ 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
• Filler increase • MFC dose

Figure 5: Summary of% filler increases and associated% MFC additions achieved in 16 industrial
woodfree trials (1-16) where acceptable machine runnability and final paper quality were achieved.

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Plf:>erex 2017 FiberLean ™: An innovative Composite Material

Fig 5. provides a summary of the % filler increase with the associated% MFC addition that was possible in 16
trials in woodfree base whilst maintaining good machine runnability and acceptable final paper quality. From
such extensive industrial trialsit has been established that every 1% addition of MFCallows a total filler
increase of around 5%. With careful optimisation, paper with almost identical strength and bulk properties to
the controlcan be produced with 2% addition of MFC and 10% increase in filler loading.

In coated paper the inclusion of MFC and additional filler in the base provides a further benefit of improved
coating holdout resulting in lower binder demand and the possibility of running formulations containing increased
amounts of carbonate and higher coating solids.

Fig.6 summarises the quality of a CWF offset 250gsm paper containing 28% filler and 2.1% MFC with optimised
calender load pressure compared to a reference paper containing 18% filler. In this example, the intrinsic loss
of bulk has been mitigated by the reduction in calender pressure and the gloss and smoothness have been
maintained , despite the lower calendering conditions , due to the improved surface and coating holdout of the
initial base paper.

20%

1S%
"'c::
u

~
.! 10%
~
~
...
- --
.t: S%
"'c::

."'
.r.
u

~ -S%
0%

I ---
-10% Base Calender Top Side Bulk MD Smooth-
Scott load Gloss Stiff- ness
Bond ness (PPS)

Figure 6: Quality of a CWF offset 250gsm paper (28% filler) & 2.1% MFC compared to
a reference paper containing 18% filler.

White Top Liner

White top liner is produced is a 2 layer sheet consisting typically of an unbleached long fibre kraft layer with a
filler containing bleached short fibre pulp laminated onto the top. The white top layer is designed to hide the
brown layer and also proved a suitable surface on which to print (Fig.?). The grammage of the white top layer
needs to be sufficient to optically hide the brown colour, but a minimum level is desirable to reduce the overall
cost. Addition of high opacity fillers are often used to increase the optical performance of the white layer,
however the amount added is constrained by a loss in the z directional strength.

Figure 7: Structure of white top liner.

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FiberLean ™: An innovative Composite Material ~2017

The white top liner board requires high tensile stiffness index (specific modulus) however bulk and bending
stiffness are of lesser importance since they are primarily provided by the fluting.

The potential tor MFC in whitetop liner board is therefore to facilitate the reduction in gsm of the white top layer
whilst increasing the tiller content. The presence of the MFC allows constant X-Y direction strength (tensile)
and Z direction strength (burst) to be maintained with lower gsm and higher tiller loading which results in very
significant savings in white fibre. The overall total weight and specification mechanical properties of the
finished board can be maintained by adjustment of the grammage of brown fibre layer.

Fig.8 shows a mill trial example of a decrease in white top fibre layer combined with a simultaneous increased
level of filler I MFC and brown layer grammage, to provide a board with equal brightnessand machine runnability
to the control.
• 2.5% MFC in white layer.
• + 9% filler, 1Ogsm of top layer replaced by brown layer.
• Constant brightness.
• Machine speed, filler retention & runnability maintained.

• Bottom Layer D White Top Layer

140

120
42gsm
52gsm 23.5" Filler
100 14.5" Filler

80
~
"'
\l)
60

40

20

0
Reference 2.5" mfc

Figure 8: Simultaneous filler increase and gsm reduction.

100 r-----------------------------------------~

80

.
~ 60
~
~
~
E 40

I- • -
.g
...
~ 20

........
~

'#. 0

-20 . __________________________________________ J

Brl&htness Gurley Scott Bond Burst lnde• Tensile TEA Tensile

-
SCT
Porosity lndu Sti ffness
lndu

Figure 9: Comparison of WT liner board produced with 0% (reference) and 2.5% MFC.

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(:bperex.. 201 7 FiberLean ™: An innovative Composite Material

Fig.9 summarizes the strength and porosity properties of the board produced in this trial. The inclusion of 2.5%
MFC allowed all wet and dry strength properties of the final board to be maintained wh ilst reducing the white
top layer from 52gsm (14.5% filler) to 42gsm (23.5% filler). The final board also had a significant reduction in
air permeability, and a 40% increase in Scott Bond strength shows that there might be an even higher potential
for filler increase and therefore the potential to achieve higher board brightness.

Folding Box Board

Folding box board (FBB) is typically constructed in 3layers (Fig .10) . The middle layer is generally made from
bulky but weak TMP and the outer layers from chemical pulp. This chemical pulp has the dual functionality of
hiding the middle layers and also increasing the product bending stiffness. The outer layers give this enhanced
stiffness through the 1-beam effect and also retain a high specific modulus to resist stretching . Filler can be
added to the outer layers to enhance the optical properties but there are limitations on the amount of filler that
can be added , as too high a loading will decrease stiffness and z direction strength .

Figure 10: Schematic construction of FBB board .

For this type of product, MFC can be used to increase the filler content and gram m age of the outer layers and
concurrently decrease the weight of the fibre required. The weight of the middle layer can be increased
simultaneously to maintain bulk and other mechanical properties. Another application of MFC might be into
the middle layer also and in this case it has a function of improving elongation and delamination resistance.

Fig.11 gives a summary of the compositional changes carried out during a FBB mill trial. Addition of Fiberlean™
allowed simultaneous filler increase (+ 10% filler and 2.25% mfc in each layer and fibre grammage reduction in
both outer layers (4gsm in top layer and 3 gsm in the bottom layer) . The Fibre in the middle layer was
increased by 7% and the stiffness , filler retention and machine runnabi lity were maintained. The final FBB
maintained its stiffness and brightness specification and improved its smoothness at a reduced cost (Fig. 12).

• gsm bottom • gsm middle • gsm top Coating

350

300

250

200
:!:
:g 150

100

50

0
Reference 2.25% mfc in top & bottom

Figure 11: Summary of FBB trial compositional changes .

- - 166 - -
FiberLean ™: An innovative Composite Material PJpecex. 201 7

20

10

I
· 50

~ L---------------------------------------~
MO stlffnes.s CO stiffnus Co.~ed
Side Uncolted S~ kndtsen Btndts.n
Bn&htness 8r11i'tMSs Smoothnns Smoothnns
U~awd !Nde Coated Sid•

Figure 12: Improved smoothness at reduced cost

The key to successful trials with Fiberlean TM

Industrial trials with MFC require careful planning since several machine parameters will need to be modified
simultaneously. The inclusion of Fiberlean™ and increasing filler loading levels may require optimisation of
wet end chemistry and therefore should be carried out in partner with the incumbent retention aid supplier. lt is
also recommended that trials ramp up and then ramp down the amount of MFC in order to allow the system
time to equilibrate (Fig.13) .

12

10
"'
"' 8
!"'
u
.E
15 6 •Filler Increase
"'Cl -+MFCDosage
"'
~ 4
Q
~

0
.J- ~ ~ 3 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
r--..

10 11 12
.......

Figure 13: Ramp up and down of MFC & filler during the mill trial.
Mill trials can be run in all regions using large scale batches of MFC produced at lmerys pilot plant in CornwaiiUK
(Figs.14 and 15).

Figure 14: MFC produced for mill trial. Figure 15: Fiberlean™ pilot plant in Cornwall.

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PlPerex: 2017 FiberLean ™: An innovative Composite Material

Conclusion
This paper has demonstrated that the use of MFC and in particular Fiberlean™ in paper and board production
can create some exciting new opportunities for new products and cost reduction .

In both graphic papers and uncoated and coated white top board allow very high loading levels thus allowing
the replacement of white kraft fibre , without creating problems of wet web strength on machine and dry
strength in the final products .

In board it also can allow reduction of the grammage of the white top layer with compensation from bulkier
brown fibres from the inter plies, thus offering the possibility for increased bulk or equivalent bulk at lower total
sheet grammage.

MFC redefines the world of composites and in the future will significantly influence the way in which many
types of materials are made.

Referances
R. Bown, Physical and chemical aspects of the use of fillers in paper; In Paper Chemistry (ed.
J.C.Roberts) : 194-230. Springer Netherlands (1996).

2. J.S. Phipps, Choosing fillers for optimum paper properties: understanding the compromises; Paper
Technology, 42 (7): 37-41 (2001) .

3. D.H. Page , A theory for the tensile strength of paper; Tappi J. 52(4) :674 (1969).

4. K.M. Beazley and H. Petereit, Effect of China clay and calcium carbonate on paper properties; Wochenbl.
Papierfabr 103 (4) ,143-147 (1975).

5. Roberts, John Christopher, The chemistry of paper, Royal Society of Chemistry (2007).

6. Herrick F., Casebier R., Hamilton J. and Sandberg K. , Microfibrillated Cellulose: morphology and
accessibility,J. Appl. Polym. Sci.: Appl. Polym. Symp., 37, 797-813 (1983) .

7. Turbak A. , Snyder F. and Sandberg, K. , Microfibrillated cellulose, a new cellulose product: properties,
uses, and commercial potential, J. Appl. Polym. Sci.: Appl. Polym . Symp. , 37, 815-827 (1983).

8. Brodin , Fredrik Wernersson, Oyvind Weiby Gregersen and Kristin Syverud , "Cellulose nanofibrils:
challenges and possibilities as a paper additive or coating material-a review, Nord Pulp Pap Res J
29.1 ' 156-166 (2014).

9. Sir6, lstvan and David Plackett, Microfibrillated cellulose and new nanocomposite materials: a review,
Cellulose 17 .3, 459-494 (201 0).

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