Kraft or sulfate process

Kraft Process. The dominant chemical wood pulping process is the kraft or sulfate process. The alkaline pulping Hquor or digesting solution contains about a three-to-one ratio of sodium hydroxide, NaOH, and sodium sulfide, Na2S. The name kraft, which means strength in German,... 

Alkaline delignification in the form of the Kraft or Sulfate process is now the most widely used method of lignin removal. It uses a mixture of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide—the latter being produced in the recovery process by the reduction of sodium sulfate... 

Writing paper was first used in Egypt as far back as 2500-2000 BC, made from the papyrus reed. Paper manufacture began in China about AD 105. In 1690 the first American paper mill began its operation. Two recent dates of importance to modem paper technology are 1867, when Tilghman in the U.S. developed the sulfite process, and 1884, when Dahl in Germany discovered the kraft or sulfate process. 

The production of wood pulp from lignocellulosic materials by treatment with various chemical liquors, particularly the neutral sulfite semichemical process and the kraft or sulfate process, gives residual black liquors. These contain salts that carry acetic acid and formic acid equivalent to 5% or more of the dry weight of the wood. 

The kraft, or sulfate process is today the preeminent chemical pulping process. In Canada alone, 80% of all the chemical pulp produced is by this method, and worldwide some 85% of the total is via this route. The current prominence of this pulping procedure warrants a rather more complete discussion of the details than devoted to the other chemical pulping methods. 

Rotary kilns and, to a lesser extent, Fluo-SoHds kilns are used to calcine a wet precipitated calcium carbonate filter cake in the kraft or sulfate paper-pulp process (15). Lime is regenerated for use as a causticization reagent in recovering caustic soda for pulp digestion. Losses in lime recovery are replaced by purchased lime (see Paper Pulp). 

Chemical pulping of wood is commonly carried out according to the Kraft (sulfate) or sulfite processes [13]. These methods are described in the following subsections. 

The process of pulping, degrading the lignin to a more soluble form so the cellulose fibers can be separated from it, involves some interesting chemistry. The kraft or alkaline sulfate process dominates this part of the industry. Approximately 78% of all pulp is made by the kraft process, 3%... 

Wood is converted into pulp by mechanical, chemical, or semichemical processes. Sulfite and kraft (sulfate) are the common chemical processes, and neutral sulfite is the principal semichemical process (NSSC). Coniferous wood species (softwoods) are the most desirable, but the deciduous, broad-leaved species (hardwoods) have gained rapidly in their usage and constitute about 25 percent of pulp-wood. Table 28.2 summarizes the conditions utilized with the various pulping processes,... 

Increases in yield of naval stores are brought about by chemical treatment of the exposed wood, especially with paraquat herbicides (dipyridyl compounds). This treatment stimulates extensive oleoresin formation and diffusion into the wood, extending to the pith of the tree and several feet above the treatment level. As much as 40 percent oleoresin content in the wood has been produced. Such treatment could double naval stores production, for both gum and sulfate processes. It also has the potential of providing a new type of wood naval stores by solvent extraction prior to kraft pulping, or a combination of both methods. 

This process also transfers heat from the flue gases to the black liquor so that it leaves the last stage of evaporation hot. At this point, it is referred to as strong black liquor. Addition of make-up chemicals, either sodium sulfate ( salt cake ) or sulfur as necessary is carried out at this stage to replace any losses of sodium and sulfur occurring elsewhere in the process. In fact, sulfate process is synonymous with kraft process because the primary make-up chemical requirement of the kraft process is sodium sulfate, although sodium sulfate is not an active constituent of kraft pulping liquor. 

Commercially, most cellulose is extracted from wood by one of two methods, the kraft (sulfate) process or the steam explosion process. The product of these reactions is wood pulp, which consists primarily of cellulose. In the kraft process, wood chips are treated with a solution of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and sodium sulfide (Na2S) at temperatures of about 175°C (35o°F) for two to six hours. This process usually results in a yield of about 40 to 45 percent wood pulp. The pulp is then treated with a bleaching agent, such as calcium or sodium hypochlorite (Ca(0Cl)2 or NaCIO) or chlorine dioxide (C102) to remove the color of lignin and other impurities. 

KRAFT PROCESS - A wood-pulping process in which sodium sulfate is used in the caustic soda pulp-digestion liquor. Also called Kraft pulping or sulfate pulping. 

Sterols are found in the tall oil that results from the kraft (sulfate) process of making wood pulp. Tall soap (-3% sterol by dry weight, or 50% of the non-saponifiable fraction) yields tall oil (90 kg per ton of cellulose) by acidification with dilute sulfuric acid and then tall pitch (-20% of the tall soap) as a residue after distillation. Sterols tend to be retained and concentrated to -10% in the tall pitch. However, losses are encountered between tall soap and tall pitch. Sterols are obtained from these fractions by extraction with organic solvents. A simple example depends on an extraction with warm alcohol from which the crude product... 

The most commonly used reinforcement for high pressure decorative and industrial laminates is paper (qv). The strong substrate layers, or filler, are kraft paper. Kraft is a brown paper made from a sulfate pulp process (8). It consists of both short cellulose fibers from hardwoods and long fibers from conifers. The long fibers impart most of the wet strength required for resin saturation processes. 

Sulfite paper has a relatively short life span, since residual acid will continue to hydrolyze the cellulose and cause embrittlement. Further sources of acid include aluminum sulfate (which is added together with resin to suppress bleeding or feathering of ink into the paper) and S02 and NO from the atmosphere. Much of the world s library collections and archives will soon be lost as the paper crumbles. Various deacidification treatments (e.g., with ammonia, morpholine, cyclohexylamine carbamate, or diethyl-zinc) have been proposed and tried, but at best they can only halt the process of embrittlement and cannot reverse it.14 With the move to kraft pulping, alkaline peroxide bleaching, and increasing use of precipitated calcium carbonate as a filler, the high quality papers produced today are intrinsically acid free and should also resist subsequent acidification by S02-polluted air fairly well. 

The oleoresinous exudate or "pitch of many conifers, but mainly pines, is the raw material for the major products of the naval stores industry. The oleoresin is produced in the epithelial cells which surround the resin canals. When the tree is wounded the resin canals are cut. The pressure of the epithelial cells forces die oleoresin to the surface of die wound where it is collected. The oleoresin is separated into two fractions by steam distillation. The volatile fraction is called gum turpentine and contains chiefly a mixture of monoterpenes but a smaller amount of sesquiterpenes is present also. The nonvolatile gum rosin 5 consists mainly of llie dilerpenuid resin acids and smaller amounts of esters, alcohols and steroids. Wood turpentine, wood rosin and a fraction of intermediate volatility, pine oil are obtained together by gasoline extrachon of the chipped wood of old pine stumps. Pine oil is largely a mixture of the monoterpenoids terpineol. borneol and fenchyl alcohol. Sulfate turpentine and its nonvolatile counterpart, tall oil, 5 are isolated as by-products of the kraft pulping process. Tall oil consists of nearly equal amounts of saponified fatty acid esters and resin acids. 

---