Pulp production

Lead Institute HF Institute of Wood Research

Research and evaluation of raw materials and processes for pulp production

Different raw materials and processes for the production of chemical and mechanical pulps are being used to evaluate their suitability for specific applications. The focus is on processes with high resources- and energy-efficiency.

Background and Objective

The pulp and paper industry is a major, consumer-orientated industry branch with high raw material and energy demand. It is a permanent task to investigate different raw materials, especially residual and waste materials or agricultural by-products on their suitability for the production of fibres. Beside the established processes, also alternative, environmental benign processes are developed and applied. These processes should consume less energy, result in high fibre yield, enable a simple chemical recovery and offer good options for material production according to modern biorefinery.

Approach

The procedure is strongly dependent on the specific target. Normally, in the case of fibre production for papermaking, the investigations comprise a chemical analysis of the raw material, an investigation of the cooking parameters of the applied pulping processes, analysis of the gained pulps and the waste liquors, determination of the strength properties, and in most cases also pulp bleaching trials.