FES342 1

Pulp:
Defined as the crude fibre material produced from cellulosic materials by mechanical and/or
chemical processes for subsequent manufacture of paper; paper & fibre boards, rayon, pulp
moulded products, plastics etc. after further treatment & processing.
Paper:
 Self-bonded thin sheet made of pulp.
 Strength of paper is a function of fibre-fibre bonding (hydrogen bond: a chemical bond in
which a hydrogen atom of one molecule is attracted to an electronegative atom,
especially a nitrogen, oxygen, or fluorine atom, usually of another molecule) +
mechanical interwinning.
 The individual fibre of pulp getting mechanically entangled to each other during sheet
formation in wet state.
 Polar liquid (water), breaks the hydrogen bonds between the hydroxyl groups of adjacent
fibre & gets absorbed by cellulose (paper loses strength when wetted).
 Non-polar liquids don’t have any affinity for cellulose and can’t breaks fibre-fibre bonds.
Raw materials:
 Fibrous raw materials:
 wood & non-wood (bamboo, grasses, jute, stalks of corn & tobacco etc.) materials
 Softwood (conifers) & hardwood (broad leaved species)
 Softwoods are preferred because of their higher length
 For better grades & higher strength softwood pulps are blended with hardwood pulps
 In Bangladesh, pulp is made mainly from bamboo, bagasse & hardwoods as only one
softwood (pine) grows here
 Softwood pulp is imported and mixed in various proportions to the locally produced
pulp
 Bamboo:
 Muli bamboo (Meloccana baccifera), major raw material of pulp for the Karnafully
Paper Mills (KPM) along with other bamboo species
 Sylhet Pulp & Paper Mills use mainly bamboos, khagra reeds & hardwood species
 Bagasse:
 Is the fibrous ligno-cellulosic residue of the sugarcane after the extraction of sugar,
contains 25-30% pith
 To protect bagasse from fungi & bacteria, economic way is to depith immediately
after extraction of sugar
 Used by the North Bengal Paper mills (NBPM), Pabna
 Ekra, Nal & Khagra reeds:
 These were abundant in Sylhet, when Sylhet Pulp & Paper Mills (SPPM) was panned
 As the land use systems have been changed, small amounts of reeds left.

FES 15th Batch SUST

FES342 2

 Hardwood:
 Mainly Gamar (Gmelina arborea), Kadam (Anthocephalus chinensis), Semul
(Bombax ceiba), Malakana Koroi (Paraserianthes falcataria) etc.
 Softwood:
 Tropical pines species have been introduced by BFRI & plantation raised by the
Forest Department
 90% of pulp world wide is made from pines and other softwoods as these have long
fibre (avg. 3mm in length)
 Waste Paper
 Paper waste from mills, machine, used papers etc.
 Sonali Paper Mills, Dhaka uses waste paper pulp together with SPPM pulp &
imported softwood pulp
 Non-fibrous raw materials:
 Size:
 To make paper resistant to penetration of liquids, ink, blood or water
 Internal sizing: agents (Rosin, starch etc.) added to the pulp
 Surface sizing: agents (bitumen emulsion, synthetic resins, wax etc.) added to the
surface of paper
 Alum:
 Paper maker’s alum, Al2(SO4)3: 18H2O is added to reduce the pH of the stock
 Fillers:
 These are inorganic mineral substance, fill the pores and increase the density of the
paper.
 China clay is used most extensively as fillers.
 Starch & natural gums:
 Starch (corn starch along with tapioca & potato starch) with vegetable gums (bean,
locust, guar etc.) added as binding materials.
 Dyes:
 For colouring & improve the brightness of white papers dyes are used
 Wet-strength resins:
 Amino resins ie. Urea formaldehyde & melamine formaldehyde resins used
commercially & upto 50% wet-strength is achieved.
 Fungicides & Fire-retardants:
 Applied for the protection against decay & fire.

FES 15th Batch SUST

FES342 3

Pre-treatment of wood and other raw materials

 Sawing & Barking:
 Pulp logs are sawn into bolts of desired length
 Debarking (Knife Barker, Drum Barker, Hydraulic Barker)
 Chipping, crushing & screening:
 Wood must be chipped
 Bamboos may be chipped or crushed
 All chips are screened to remove fines and coarse materials. Fines sent to the boiler and
coarse are rechipped
 Pulping:
 To separate the individual fibre from each other
 With a minimum of mechanical damage and purify the fiber chemically
 Two processes of pulping: mechanical & chemical process
A. Mechanical pulping process
1. Groundwood process
2. Pretreated ground wood process
3. Fibrization of chips

1. Groundwood process
 Grinding of logs:
 Barked wood sticks (24 to 80 inch long with 45 to 50% moisture content) are held laterally
against a revolving grinding stone to obtain long fibre by tearing (during grinding heat
about 75°c generated to obtain thermal softening of the cell wall).
 Torn fibre get lodged in the grooves of grinding stone.
 Water sprayed on the stone to cool it & to carry away the wet mass of fibre, called flush.
 Flush drops into a stock sewer below the grinder & passes on to a silver or bull screen to
remove coarse materials.
 Fine materials collected in the screened stock pit to obtain commercial ground pulp.
 Oversized discarded by fine screens are retreated in refiners and returned to screens.
 Wood splinters, shivs & sand particles are removed from grinding stone before pulp passes
onto the paper machine.

FES 15th Batch SUST

FES342 4

 Grinders:
 Pulp grinders may either be intermittent or continuous depending on methods of loading.
 Intermittent grinder is hand-fed pocket grinder in which wood sticks are placed in chambers
or pockets 2, 3 or 4 in numbers.
 Wood sticks are placed continuously in continuous grinder.
Properties and uses:
 The yield of pulp on wood input is very high, 90-95%, even up to about 99%.
 These pulp contains many damaged and broken fibre. It also loses strength rapidly due to
decomposition of non-cellulosic components.
 Therefore, the products are of low strength and values.
 Uses are for newsprint, Magazines, cheap books, toilet papers etc.
2. Pre-treated ground wood process
 Pre-steaming or boiling the pulpwood bolts at a moderate pressure prior to grinding
produces mechanical pulp with longer and better separated fibre of a greater strength.
 Pulp gets discoloured and become brown in colour which known as brown pulp.
 Because of the higher strength and brown colour, its use is limited to wrapping paper and
container boards.
3. Fibrization of chips
 Refiners
 The chips of wood as well as non-woody ligno-cellulosic materials used here.
 The chips first breakdown into match sticks like fragments, then breakdown into smaller
fibre bundles and then into single fibre.
 Asplund Defibrator
 The basic principles of the Asplund process is the heating of wood or other ligno-cellulosic
materials to a temperature of 150°C and higher with steam at a pressure of 3.5-11.5 kp/cm2.
 This has the effects of softening the lignin which binds the individual fibre together.
Properties and uses:
 Principal use in newspapers, magazine paper, boards for folding and moulded cartons,
wallpapers, tissue papers etc.

FES 15th Batch SUST

FES342 5

B. Chemical pulping processes

a) Alkaline Process: if the cooking chemical used alkaline in nature
b) Acidic Process: if the cooking chemical used acidic in nature
a) Alkaline process:
 two principal used for pulping- soda process (only sodium hydroxide used)& sulphate
process (sodium hydroxide + sodium sulphide)
 Sodium hydroxide used as a major cooking chemical
 Pulping carried out in welded steel digesters, which are heated directly or indirectly
 Digestion is carried out under pressure, which is controlled according to the type of raw
materials used & quality of pulp required
 After completion of cooking, contents are blown by pressure into a blow tank, this separate
the fibres in the very soft chips
 Pulp is then washed in diffusers or washers
 Successive washing make pulp free of black liquor, black liquor sent to soda recovery &
pulp is processed further.
b) Acidic process:
 Fibrous raw materials are digested with cooking liquor (calcium bisulphite + sulphur
dioxide)
 This process termed as ‘Sulphite process’
 For this process the steel shell of the digester is protected by an acid-resistant brick lining.
 Cooking liquor prepared by burning sulphur or iron pyrites in air to form sulphur dioxide.
 sulphur dioxide passed through absorption towers containing limestone over which water
flows, which form sulphurous acid that dissolves lime as calcium bisulphite.
 The waste liquor from this process is discharged into stream.
C. Semi-chemical process
 Semi-chemical pulps are those which are produced by light chemical treatment followed
by a mechanical fibrization.
 Chemical treatment helps in the softening of chips & some removal of lignin
 Semi-chemical pulps ordinarily include neutral sulphite, semi-chemical high yield
sulphate, high yield sulphite, cold soda & mechano-chemical pulps.

FES 15th Batch SUST