Raw Materials for Paper

Fibrous raw materials

Paper pulp: ground wood, bleached and unbleached pulp, semi
chemical pulp.
Reuse Pulp: paper products, newspaper, paper bound.
Cellulose pulp: straw, linen and cotton.
Speciality pulp: inorganic fibres such as asbestos and glass.
Non-fibrous raw materials
Inorganic raw materials: clay, talc, TiO2, ZnS, calcium carbonate,
alums, sulphur, lime, sodium hydroxide, soda ash, hydrogen
peroxide, chlorine etc.
Stages in production of paper

The main stages in paper production are:

A. Converting wood into pulp (pulping)
B. Bleaching and finishing operation of wood pulp
C. Paper making process

A. Converting wood into pulp

Pulp is defined as a commercial cellulose used for production of
paper and derived from materials like wood, bamboo etc. it is
prepared by mechanical or chemical methods. The process of
preparation of pulp from raw materials is called pulping.
Mainly there are four of pulping process

a. Mechanical pulping
the woods are collected and bark is removed. It involves
mainly grinding and abrading action. For this purpose revolving
grindstone are used in which wood is pressed. The grindstones
are silicon carbide or aluminium oxide grits in a vitrified clay
binder. The characteristics of pulp can be varied by changing
stone surface pattern, stone speed, presure of wood log against
stone and temperature of pulp slurry. These pulps are only used
for relatively impermanent paper such as newsprints, catalogs,
magazines and paperboard.
b. Chemical pulping
the main objective of chemical pulping is to removal
to the lignin portion of wood.
There are two important chemical pulping process.
i. The kraft (sulphate) process
ii. The sulphite process
 10 atm and Pulp is washed in
about 170 ⁰C is rotary vaccum
NaOH + Na2S wood
maintained for washer system in
2-3 hrs in mimimum
digester conditions.
Separate
d liquor
called
dark
liquor

The inorganic Concentrated to 60- 65%

portion collected in evaporator to allow
The calcium carbonate is the bottom + burning of lignin and
filtered off and removed. The Na2SO4 +H2O + carbohydrate degradation
pulp is collected for drying and Ca(OH)2 product.
used for bleaching.

The kraft (sulphate) process

 Lignin of wood is removed
by reacting by reacting with
bisulphite ion under acidic
condition to give ligno
sulphonates , insoluble in
water
Cooking liquor is prepared by burning
sulphur to sulphur dioxide and
absorption of it in water reacting it
with proper base sodium, magnesium
or ammonia

White color pulp is

Liquor is sodium, magnesium or
produced which is used to
ammonium bisulphite soluble at pH 4.5,
prepared white grade
cooked for 4-5hrs, in batch digestors at
papers, book papers and
140-150⁰C
sanitary paper.

The sulphite process

c. Semi chemical pulping
the chips of wood are carried out a mild chemical
treatment with dilute sulphite, sulphate, caustic soda etc. the
wood is softened to separate fibres mechanically. Such process
produce pulp of specific and higher quality than mechanical
pulping. The yield of pulp is less but quality of it is better.

D. Solvent pulping
In this process, wood chips are contacted with aqueous
solvent mixture and digested for several hours at elevated
temperature. Initially, formic and acetic acids are released then
hydrolysis of lignin and hemicellulose occurs. Catalyst like
HCl, CH3COOH, HCOOH, magnesium sulphate etc. can be
used for better delignification. Cellulose pupl is filtered and
solvent is recovered by distillation.
B. Bleaching and Finishing Operation of pulp
The main purpose of bleaching of pulp is to remove remaining pulp and
other colored degradation products, in three stages; chlorination, alkaline
extraction and oxidative process. In chlorination, elemental chlorine and
then for alkaline extraction, NaOH is used. For oxidativee process, sodium
or calcium hupochorite, chlorine dioxide or hydrogen peroxide are used.
The pulp is washed in each stage to remove solubilized impurities. The
combination of stages can be specific for different type of pulp. The
greater the number of steps, the higher will be qualityof final pulp but cost
is increased.
C. Paper Making Process
paper is defined as thick mass or pressed mass of fibres sheet usually
cellulosic material and generally formed on fine wire screen from a water
suspension.
Two steps;
i. Preparation of fibre suspension
ii. Formation of paper
i. Preparation of fibre suspension

pulps are mixed with water to make slurry by using mechanical

disintegrates which contains rotating drum with knife
attachments. Such operation is called beating and refining. Many
types of filled are added to slurry to increase brightness, fitness
bulk, flexibility, opacity, softness and weight of paper. Sizing and
coloring agents are also added before processing. Such coloring
agents are synthetic dyes or water insoluble pigments. In this
way, fibre suspension is prepared.

ii. Formation of paper (three steps)

a. Forming a wet web
b. b. pressing the web sheet
c. c. drying the sheet
 a. Forming a wet web
A wet web is prepared by running 99.5% water fiber slurry into a moving
belt of wire clothes at a speed of 50/min for fine paper and 500m/min for
news print paper. By using gravity, water is drained. The screen has a
side-wise shaking motion to give better interlocking of fibres on a mat.
the water is collected as white matter and reused for recovery of fiber.

b. Pressing the wet sheet (wet web)

The wet paper sheet containing 80% water is passed to felt roll to press
section where water is removed by mild pressure. The amount of water is
reduced to 60-65%.

iii. Drying the sheet

The pressed web is then passed through smoothing rolls. Then passed
through steam heated metal cylinders where heat and moisture are
removed. The paper board is directly dried. It is then passed through
pressure rolls to produce smooth well finished paper. It is wound in rolls
and cut, coated and packaged.
 Quality of Paper
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