Adu, CynthiaBerglund, LinnOksman, KristiinaEichhorn, Stephen J.Jolly, Mark R.Zhu, Chenchen2018-07-042018-07-042018-06-27Adu C, Berglund L, Oksman K, Eichhorn SJ, Jolly M, Zhu C, Properties of cellulose nanofibre networks prepared from never-dried and dried paper mill sludge, Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 197, Part 1, 1 October 2018, pp. 765-7710959-6526http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.06.263https://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/13315Paper mills yield large volumes of sludge materials which pose an environmental and economic challenge for disposal, despite the fact that they could be a valuable source for cellulose nanofibres (CNF) production. The aim of the study was to evaluate the production process and properties of CNF prepared by mechanical fibrillation of never-dried and dried paper mill sludge (PMS). Atomic force microscopy (AFM) showed that average diameters for both never-dried and dried paper sludge nanofibres (PSNF) were less than 50 nm. The never-dried and dried sludge nanofibres showed no statistical significant difference (p > 0.05) in strength ∼92 MPa, and ∼85 MPa and modulus ∼11 GPa and ∼10 GPa. The study concludes that paper mill sludge can be used in a dried state for CNF production to reduce transportation and storage challenges posed on industrial scale.enAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Article20775381