Paper machines

High alpha-ceUulose chemical woodpulp paper, machine-made primarily from fast-growiag softwoods, sized usiag alkaline calcium compounds, and loaded with fillers and other additives, constitutes a presumably more stable material. Different types of paper are used for art, manuscripts, documents, books, etc, each having its own properties of color, texture, feel, etc. 

Binding fine ceUulose fibers and soHd inorganic additives to long ceUulose fibers as the paper pulp is being formed into sheets on a paper machine... 

Vacuum filters are usually simulated with a Buchner funnel test or filter leaf test (54). The measured parameters are cake weight, cake moisture, and filtration rate. Retention aids are usually evaluated using the Britt jar test, also called the Dynamic Drainage Jar, which simulates the shear conditions found on the paper machine and predicts performance (55). 

Fig. 4. Fourdrinier paper machine A, headbox B, Fourdrinier wet end with foil boxes C, wet and D, dry suction boxes, pickup, and closed transfer of web...

Continuous paper machines have undergone extensive mechanical developments since the 1950s, although the principles employed have changed Utde. Cylinder machines stUl are operated and involve multiples of five to seven cylinders they are used to produce heavy multi-ply boards. Fourdriniers are common in the industry and can be used to produce virtually any grade of paper or paperboard. They vary from 1 to 10 meters in width and, including the press and dryer sections, may be more than 200 m long. 

Subsequent to stock preparation and proper dilution, the paper furnish usually is fed to the paper machine through one or more screens or other devices to remove dirt and fiber bundles. It then enters a flow spreader which provides a uniform flowing stream and which is the width of the paper machine. The flow spreader, or manifold, discharges the slurry into a headbox, where fiber flocculation is minimised by microturbulence and where the proper pressure head is provided to cause the slurry to flow at the proper velocity through the slice and onto the moving Fourdrinier wire. 

Paper may be coated either on equipment that is an integral part of the paper machine, ie, on-machine coating, or on separate converting equipment. Many plants include both types of coating equipment and utilize each to its maximum advantage for paper and paperboard. The combination of techniques is of particular value where more than one coating must be appHed to the sheet in order to obtain a product of desired quaUty. 

In 1933, the first roU coater was installed as an integral part of a paper machine. These on-machine coaters produce a low cost coated paper used largely for magazines. Coating of paper off-machine at speeds greater than paper machine manufacturing speeds is possible with the use of the various available blade coaters (17). 

The type of paperboard used by the carton industry is boxboard. Boxboard may be categorized, based on the raw material, as combination or soHd boxboard. Combination boxboard, of which there are many grades, normally is made on a multicylinder paper machine using a substantial percentage of waste paper with virgin pulp. SoHd boxboard usually is made on a Fourdrinier paper machine using only virgin pulp and it is bleached or coated. 

Papermaking additives can be categorized either as process additives or as functional additives. Process additives are materials that improve the operation of the paper machine, such as retention and drainage aids, biocides, dispersants, and defoamers they are primarily added at the wet end of the paper machine. Functional additives are materials that enhance or alter specific properties of the paper product, such as fillers (qv), sizing agents, dyes, optical brighteners, and wet- and dry-strength additives they may be added internally or to the surface of the sheet. 

It is also important to study the interactions of papermaking additives (4) in the paper machine water system some additives act synergisticaHy, so that the performance of each is enhanced by the presence of the other. However, some additives have a negative impact on the performance of other additives, or on other desirable paper properties. Thus, optimization of the addition points and usage rates of the entire additive system is necessary in order to maximize performance of the chemical additives and the paper sheet properties, and to minimize cost and negative interactions both on the paper machine and in the white-water system. This is especially tme as unanticipated additives enter the wet end of the paper machine from recycled furnishes, including coated broke (5). 

Retention and drainage additives are vital to the use of recycled fibers. Papermakers consider recycled fibers to behave like virgin fines, while recycled fines behave like filler. Drainage on the paper machine can be impeded and first-pass retention reduced by the use of recycled fiber (9). Additionally, the negative impact of contaminants found in recycled fibers can be minimized by the appropriate use of dispersants and other pitch-control additives. 

Some hquid defoamers are preemulsified relatives of paste defoamers. In addition to the fatty components mentioned above, kerosene [8008-20-6] or an organic cosolvent such as 2-propanol have been used to enhance stabiUty of the oil—water emulsion and the solubiUty of the defoamer s active ingredients. These cosolvents are used less frequently as concerns increase about volatile organic emissions (VOCs) from the paper machine. Additionally, the use of ultrapure mineral oil in defoamers has become commonplace. Concern about the creation of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD) and 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzofuran (TCDF) in the pulping process has led to the discovery of unchlorinated precursor molecules, especially in recycled mineral oil and other organic cosolvents used in defoamer formulations (28). In 1995 the mineral oil that is used is essentially free of dibenzodioxin and dibenzofuran. In addition, owing to both the concern about these oils and the fluctuating cost of raw materials, the trend in paper machine defoamers is toward water-based defoamers (29). 

The defoamer formulations mentioned so far consist of fairly inexpensive raw materials, but several more cosdy defoaming materials have come into use in paper mills. Hydrophobicized siUca particles are useful in some emulsion formulations. SiUcone solutions and emulsions are very effective in eliminating foam in paper machine water systems. The siUca- or siUcone-based defoamers have higher activity, which somewhat compensates for the higher cost, but care must be taken to prevent ovemse. 

The most widely used pitch control method is the addition of pitch dispersants, which can be either organic, ie, typically anionic polymers such as naphthalene sulfonates, ligninsulfonates, and polyacrylates (33,34), or inorganic, ie, typically clay or talc. The polymers maintain the pitch as a fine dispersion in the pulp, preventing agglomeration and potential deposition on the paper machine or the sheet. When talc, clay, or other adsorbent fillers are added to the furnish, moderate amounts of pitch can adsorb on these materials, producing a nontacky soHd that can be retained in the sheet. 

Though functionally and chemically similar, fillers and pigments ate distinguished from one another in that fillers are added at the wet end of the paper machine, and serve to fill the sheet pigments are added at the size press and serve to alter the surface of the sheet. The most common fillers are mineral pigments, eg, clay, titanium dioxide [13463-67-7] calcium carbonate, siUca [7631-86-9], hydrated alumina [21645-51 -2], and talc [14807-96-6]. 

Polyolefin—ceUulose composites also are used in nonasbestos flooring felts, waUpapers, filter media, labels, embossable papers, and other nonwoven fabrics that are made on paper machines. Use of synthetic fibers in paper has been reviewed (103,104). 

This reduces pulp tensile strength but improves tear strength not because of fiber degradation but because the hemiceUuloses bond chemically to give added tensile strength in the final paper product. To overcome this loss in hemiceUulose polymers, starch is added on the wet end of the paper machine as a dry strength additive. 

Closed-Mill Concept. The closed-mill concept, or water circuit closure, has been studied by the pulp and paper industry for many years. In some parts of the paper manufacturing process, up to 98% of the water is recycled within the process, eg, the wet end of the paper machine. However, in the pulp mill, especiaUy kraft mills, effluents are produced owing to the need to purge from the system various metals that come in with the wood, as weU as organic by-products from the pulping process, additives, and especially chloride ions that originate in the bleach plant. 

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