Energy-efficient manufacturing is a requirement for the large-scale production of nanofibrillated cellulose systems. Today, most strides involve the development of new physicochemical pre-treatment processes or invention of new or further-development of existing mechanical delamination processes; these approaches are often costly.<br/>In this presentation, it will be shown that significant reduction in energy consumption (~ 30-50%) of the nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) manufacturing process is possible by the wise employment of existing machinery and processes – without deterioration of the attractive properties of the NFC product. The suggested approach has further the additional advantage of increasing the yield of nanofibrillation, robustness of the manufacturing process, and increasing the out-put of the process. These notions can lead to significant savings in the NFC production cost. The novel manufacturing protocol involves repeated homogenization of the pulp suspension at lower applied homogenization pressures (as compared to those currently applied). It is hypothesized that this manufacturing protocol leads to a more homogeneous and effective shearing of the fibres, than is achievable by one time homogenization of the pulp slurry at high applied pressures.<br/>

Repeated homogenization, a route for decreasing the energy consumption in the nanofibrillated cellulose manufacturing process?

249th National Meeting (2015)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.