Surface Mechanical Treatment of Tmp Pulp
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SURFACE MECHANICAL TREATMENT OF bars is relatively small, resulting in the sliding of wood chips TMP PULP FIBERS USING GRIT MATERIAL and fibers off the bars, and thus less treatment. Several researchers have attempted to overcome these prob- Phichit Somboon and Hannu Paulapuro lems by applying a combination of grinding and refining, us- Helsinki University of Technology ing a modified refiner plate with an abrasive surface [11-14]. Laboratory of Paper and Printing Technology This technique has shown the potential for reducing the en- P.O. Box 6300, FIN-02015 TKK, Finland ergy consumption. However, it has not been successful in practical applications because of problems with the modifica- ABSTRACT tion of the segments, the operation of refiners and the inten- Surface mechanical treatment of pulp fibers using grit mate- sive destruction of pulp fibers. To make it possible to apply rial in thermomechanical pulp (TMP) refining after the first- the grinding technique to wood chip refining, it is necessary to stage refining and the subsequent refining of the treated pulp determine where this technique should be applied, and how were studied. The surface mechanical treatment was per- the fibers can be efficiently broken down and fibrillated. formed using an ultra-fine friction grinder. The grit size of the grinding stone, the intensity of treatment and the rotational In the present research project, the focus was on reducing the speed were optimized to accomplish fast development and to energy consumption in the fibrillation stage (the second stage minimize the shortening of pulp fibers. The subsequent refin- of refining). The research hypothesis was the elastic work can ing was carried out using a wing defibrator operated under be reduced by increasing the disruption and opening the fiber typical TMP refining conditions. According to the results, sur- wall structure during the defibration stage by applying grit face mechanical treatment using a grinding stone with a grit material through the grinding method, thereby promoting the diameter of 297-420 µm, operated at a contact point of the development of pulp fibers and reducing the energy consump- stones and a high rotational speed of 1500 rpm, provided an tion. In a previous study [15], high-freeness TMP pulp from a efficient disruption of pulp fibers with minimized cutting. Dis- reject line was disrupted with grit material and subsequently ruption of the pulp about 20% of total energy consumption refined under TMP refining conditions. The results showed produced a promising fracture of fiber cell wall for the further the potential for reducing the energy consumption. However, development. In the subsequent refining, the disrupted pulp the pulp fibers were weakened and shortened during grit was found to result in faster development of pulp freeness, treatment and refining. To solve these problems, a deeper un- while requiring 37% less energy. Laboratory sheets showed derstanding must be gained of the parameters involved in the no significant differences in properties between the disrupted use of grit material and appropriate raw materials. and non-disrupted pulps at a given freeness. This study was designed to gain a better understanding of me- chanical treatment using grit material of the first-stage TMP INTRODUCTION pulp fibers, with the aim to achieve efficient disruption of the In the refining of wood chips, the underlying mechanism of fiber wall structure while minimizing the degradation of fiber the development of fibers proceeds in two stages: in the initial quality. Another aim was to evaluate the potential for reducing stage, called the defibration stage, the wood chips are broken the energy consumption in the second stage of treatment, in- down into coarse fibers. In the second stage, called the fibril- cluding disruption and refining. lation stage, they are further developed, e.g., delaminated, peeled off, and fibrillated, to the extent necessary for paper- making. These processes consume over 90% of the total elec- tric energy used in mechanical pulp production [1, 2]. Theo- retically, the energy input required in refining is relatively low [3-6]. It has been addressed that the high energy consumption in refining is the result of inefficient work during the defibra- tion and fibrillation stages, potentially related to the nature of the wood raw material. Wood is a viscoelastic material [3, 7, 8]. The mechanical breakdown of the structure of the wood matrix in refining fundamentally begins from the application of cyclic stresses to the wood matrix. The repeated viscoelastic deformation caused by cyclic stresses results in plastic deformation, which continues until the breaking point of the structure is reached, as shown in Figure 1. The repeated viscoelastic deformation consumes a high amount of energy without producing any de- velopment of wood fibers [2, 3, 8, 9]. Figure 1. Transformation of wood material from vis- In addition, the friction of fibers over the refiner bars plays an coelastic to plastic deformations under cyclically important role for the energy loss. According to Sundholm constant stress [3]. [10], the friction force between the wood material and refiner 1 EXPERIMENTAL Second-stage refining The experiments were divided into two parts. The first part Feed pulps of the second-stage refining were prepared, dis- was designed to find out how to achieve efficient disruption of rupted with grit material under optimized conditions. The de- pulp fibers, while minimizing fiber shortening. The second grees of grit treatment were targeted at 10, 15, and 20% of the part of the experiment was intended to evaluate the potential total refining energy consumption. After the disruption, all for reducing the energy consumption, and to examine the pulp disrupted pulps were thickened to high consistency and further and paper properties of the disrupted pulp produced in the refined under typical TMP refining conditions, as shown in subsequent refining. Figure 2. Raw materials The raw material was the first-stage TMP pulp made from Norway spruce ( Picea abies L. Karst. ) with a CSF of 580 ml produced at Stora Enso’s Summa mill in Finland. Surface mechanical treatment The mechanical treatment of the surface of TMP pulp fibers was carried out using an ultra-fine friction grinder [15]. In the beginning of the study, the key process parameters of the grinder were analyzed for optimizing the treatment in order to achieve fast disruption of pulp fibers, while minimizing fiber shortening. The analysis was based on a statistical model of a single replication of a 2 3 factorial design [16], as shown in Table 1. The intensity of treatment, rotational speed and grit Figure 2. Experimental schematic of the second- size of the grinding stone were considered. stage treatment of TMP pulp with a combination of disruption and refining. Table 1. A 2 3 factorial experiment for analysis of sur- face mechanical treatment of the first-stage TMP Second-stage refining was carried out using a wing defibrator pulp fibers using grit material. at Helsinki University of Technology [15]. The feed pulps were controlled at a consistency of 23% and a dry weight of 150 g. The peripheral speed of the defibrator was set to 750 RUN A B C LABELS rpm. The pulps were refined at a temperature of 130 °C with- out preheating and under various specific energy consump- 1 - - - (1) tions from 1 to 5 MWh/t. After refining, pulp samples were 2 + - - a taken for testing fiber and paper properties. The specific en- 3 - + - b ergy consumption in the second stage of treatment, including 4 + + - ab disruption and refining, was evaluated. 5 - - + c 6 + - + ac Sample testing The drainability of pulp fibers and laboratory sheets was 7 - + + bc tested with the whole pulp according to SCAN and ISO stan- 8 + + + abc dards. Drainability was analyzed using a Canadian standard A - Grinding position 30 µm below the contact of stones freeness tester. Laboratory sheets were formed with white wa- A + Grinding position 5 µm below the contact of stones ter circulation, and dried with a drying plate in a conditioning B - Rotational speed 1200 rpm B + Rotational speed 1500 rpm room at 23 °C and 50% RH. The physical properties of labo- C - Grinding stone No. 80, grit diameter of 149-210 µm ratory sheets were determined according to ISO standards. C + Grinding stone No. 46, grit diameter of 297-420 µm Fiber length and coarseness were measured with a Kajaani Fi- The intensity of treatment was based on the relative position berLab apparatus according to TAPPI standards. Fiber length of grinding stones. The position was controlled at below the was measured with the whole pulp. Fiber coarseness was ana- contact point of the stones in the motion stage, at 5 µm (low lyzed from fractionated pulp using a Bauer-McNett classifier intensity) and 30 µm (high intensity) [15]. The peripheral with the screen number 30 (R30). speed of the grinding stone was adjusted to 1200 rpm and 1500 rpm. The impact of the grit size was analyzed by using a The wet strength of long fibers (R30) was determined based on derivation of the breaking stress of wet paper strips at a stone No. 80 with a grit diameter of 149-210 µm and a stone zero span and the number of fibers bearing the load [17]. No. 46 with a grit diameter of 297-420 µm. The pulp slurry feed was controlled at a low consistency of 4% and circulated Breaks in the wall structure of fibers were measured based on through the grinder with four passes. After treatment, the the micropore volume in the cell wall of fractionated fibers pulps were sampled for measuring pulp drainability, fiber (R30). The measurement was made at the Helsinki University length and fiber coarseness for the factorial analysis. of Technology using a differential scanning calorimeter based 2 on the thermoporosimetry method with an isothermal step To achieve efficient disruption of pulp fibers and to minimize melting technique [18].