Adhesive Contaminants (Stickies) and Methods for Removal
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257 ADHESIVE CONTAMINANTS (STICKIES) AND METHODS FOR REMOVAL JOHN H. KLUNGNESS* AND MAHENDHA R. DOSHI** *USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, WI 53705 **D~shi & Associates Inc.. Marathon Engineers/Architects/Planners, Inc. Appleton, WI ABSTRACT A variety of adhesive contaminants (“stickies”) are encountered in wastepapers. They are broadly classified as hot melts, pressure-sensitive adhesives, and lattices. Their properties and control methods are discussed. Specifically, control methods include furnish selection, improved pulping end deflaking. well-designed screening end cleaning systems, and dispersion end additives to detackify or stabilize stickies, or both. A new technology is also discussed regarding it’s possible application for controlling stickie contaminants. Test methods for measuring stickies are also reviewed. INTRODUCTION Large amounts of wastepaper are generated every day in the United States and interest in its reuse has increased steadily due to environmental concerns and improved economics. In 1990, for example, 28.9 million tons of wastepaper were collected for recycling. By 1995, that amount is expected to increase to almost 40 million tons with a collection rate of almost 40% [1]. To facilitate the use of secondary fibers, sticky contaminants, or "stickies,” must be controlled [2]. CLASSIFICATION AND PROPERTIES OF STICKIES Wastepaper bales usually contain extraneous materials such as sand, glass, staples, nails, inks, coatings, plastic, styrofoam, wax, EVA (ethylene vinyl acetate), SBR (styrene butadiene rubber), etc. A particularly troublesome contaminant in wastepaper is “stickies” which, in their original state, were used as paper adhesives. Inks end coatings can also be a source of stickies. Four primary components of inks include pigment, vehicle, binder, and modifier. Coating formulations contain several ingredients which can be classified as pigments, binders, and additives, such as plasticizers, thickeners, dispersants, dyes, preservatives, and defoamers. Note that both inks and coatings mixtures contain binders which contribute to the stickies problem. Common binders used in inks are hydrocarbon resins and rosin esters while those used in coating formulations include starch, soya protein, acrylics, end polyvinyl acetate [3,4]. An overview of Stickies was presented by Morelend and Scott [5,6]. Mat. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. Vol. 266. © 1992 Materials Research Society 258 Stickies can generally be classified into three categories: hot melts, pressure-sensitive adhesives, and lattices. Although wax can be a contaminant, it is not included separately as it is similar to and an important ingredient of most hot melts. Contaminants such es plastics and styrofoam are also excluded from this discussion since they are not stickies. Hot Melts Hot melts are used in many applications such as book bindings and case sealing end as a moisture barrier. Many boxboards are coated with hot melts to prevent the transport of moisture. They are applied at high temperature and form bonds upon cooling. Three primary components of hot melts are vinyl acetate polymers end copolymers, tackifiers, and wax. The tackifier improves the nettability of the hot melt while wax is used as a bulking agent end to adjust the melting point of the hot melt. Tackifiera used in adhesives are summarized in Table 1 [7]. At room temperature, hot-melt adhesives are solid. They soften at 150° to 250° F, depending on the amount of waxes and other ingredients. Most hot melts are insoluble in water, acidic or alkaline solutions but dissolve readily in many organic solvents such as dichloromethane and toluene. The density of hot melts ranges between 0.9 end 1.0 g/cc. Pressure-Sensitive Adhesives Pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSA’S) are primarily used on labels, tapes, and self-sealing envelopes. An example is “Post-it Notesw which have become popular due to their convenience and ease of application. An important component of PSA is a rubber elastomer such as the widely used styrene butadiene rubber or styrene-isoprene-styrene block copolymer. A tackifier is added to improve wettability of the adhesive to the substrate end inorganic oxides are added as fillers. Like hot melts, most PSA’S are insoluble in water, mild acids, end alkalies. However, they dissolve readily in many organic solvents. Their density can range from O.9 to 1.1 g/cc. Lattices Lattices are widely used in foil lamination, heat-seal, and coating applications. They are also used on labels for varnished surfaces. Like PSA’S, lattices contain a rubbery component (a natural or synthetic rubber latex), and a tackifier. They are in the form of a colloidal suspension with appropriate additives used to prevent agglomeration. One peculiar property of lattices is that they become sticky at higher temperature (above approximately 200° F). Otherwise, their Properties - 259 similar to those of PSA’S. They are insoluble in aqueous media but dissolve readily in organic solvents. PROBLEMS DUE TO STICKIES When stickies are present in unacceptable amounts, they can cause problems with both paper machine operation end product quality. They deposit on wires, felts, press rolls, and drying cylinders. They prevent good fiber-to-fiber bonding end increase the risk of web breaks on the paper machine, particularly with newsprint end tissue grades [8, 9]. Wax or hot melts can form a thin film on linerboards, giving them a slippery surface. Consequently, when the linerboard is wound, a telescoping roll results. The appearance of a product can be greatly influenced by the presence of stickies. Hot melts end wax present in the middle layer of a multi-ply boxboard can migrate to the top end bottom surface when the board is dried. After the board is wound, adjacent layers adhere to each other. The roll is then shipped to a customer who discovers a hole or defect in the board. Stickies also cause problems in high-speed printing end converting operations. CONTROL OF STICKIES There are five approaches used to combat stickies. They include furnish selection, improved pulping and deflaking operations, screening and cleaning, dispersion, and additives. Some of these have been discussed by McKinney [10] and Doshi [11]. Furnish Selection One of the easiest ways to avoid stickies problems is to prevent their entry into the mill. It is very important that criteria [12,13,14] be established for acceptable end unacceptable wastepaper. This information should, in turn, be communicated to wastepaper dealers to maintain the quality of incoming paper. Depending on the nature of the furnish, final product end specific problems or customer needs, it may be desirable to measure the concentration of stickies, plastics or clay, the brightness, freeness, groundwood content or fiber length distribution. One or more of these indicators of wastepaper quality may be used, depending on a mill’s particular circumstances. Improved Pulping and Deflaking Once the wastepaper is accepted, it goes to the pulper where, through proper operating conditions and accessory equipment, it is fiberized without significant disintegration of contaminants. Important parameters include stock consistency, temperature, low vs. high pulping intensity, end configuration of the pulper. 260 Most modern pulpers are equipped with auxiliary equipment to remove contaminants before they are broken down into small pieces. The auxiliary equipment includes a ragger to remove wire end string, a junker for large contaminants, and a secondary pulper. A stream is bled off at the secondary pulper and is subjected to mild fiberizing. High-density contaminants accumulate in a chamber with a double-valve arrangement while stock is sent back to the pulper or is screened in a rotary screen. Many older pulpers are being retrofitted with these accessories while most newer pulpers come equipped with secondary pulpers [15]. Another pulper which is gaining in popularity, particularly for newsprint deinking, is the drum pulper [16.17,18]. Due to the absence of a high-speed rotor, the drum pulper does not have any cutting action. As a result, many contaminants, like plastics and book bindings, remain virtually intact end are rejected by the associated rotary screen. Recently, steam explosion pulping has been proposed for defibering wastepapers [19.20]. In this pulper, loose wastepapers are subjected to steam at about 400 psi end 400° F. When the pressure is released, the materiel explodes and defibers. Contaminants, stickies, end inks are also dispersed in this pulper. Long term performance of the pulp on the paper machine remains to be evaluated. Screening and Cleaning Coarse screens with holes and fine screens with slots are used to remove contaminants, based primarily on their size [21-30]. Holes are generally 0.062 in. (1.55-mm or larger), although some screens are used with a O.055 in. (1.38 mm) hole size. Fine screens have slots with widths ranging from 0.008 in. to 0.024 in. (0.20 to 0.60 mm). It is important to remember that, as slot size decreases, contaminant removal increases but so also does fiber loss [31, 32]. Moat pressure screens operate with mess reject ratios of 15-30%. TO minimize fiber loss, second and third screening stages must be utilized. How these stages are arranged is very important to the contaminant removal efficiency of the system. In a conventional cascade system (Fig. 1), re-circulation of contaminants between stages is quite common but this can be detrimental to overall system efficiency. The use of a forward-flow arrangement is recommended when ever possible to avoid this problem [34,34,35,36]. One way of accomplishing a forward flow is shown in Fig. 2. Note that both the primary end secondary stages have coarse end fine screens with openings of identical size. Secondary slotted screen accepts are moved forward. Depending on the nature of the furnish and concentration of contaminants, a scalping screen (a coarse screen with a larger hole size then those found in the primary or secondary stages) is used in the third stage, followed by a coarse screen and fine slotted screen.