Paper and paperboard

 Paper and paperboard are sheet materials made from an interlaced

network of cellulose fibers derived from wood by using sulfate and
sulfite. The fibers are then pulped and/or bleached and treated with
chemicals such as slimicides and strengthening agents to produce the
paper product.
 Paper and paperboards are commonly used in corrugated boxes, milk
cartons, folding cartons, bags and sacks, and wrapping paper. Paper and
paperboards provides mechanical strength, they are biodegradable and
have good printability.
 Coatings such as waxes or polymeric materials can be used to improve
their poor barrier properties. Apart from their poor barrier properties
to oxygen, carbondioxide and water vapour other drawbacks include
their being opaque, porous and not heat sealable
 Paper is termed board when its grammage exceeds 224 g/m2
Types of paper
 The many different types of paper used in food packaging can
be categorized as follows:
 Kraft paper—produced by a sulfate treatment process, kraft
paper is available in several forms: natural brown,
unbleached, heavy duty, and bleached white. The natural kraft
is the strongest of all paper and is commonly used for bags
and wrapping. It is also used to package flour, sugar, and
dried fruits and vegetables.
 Sulfite paper—lighter and weaker than kraft paper, sulfite
paper is glazed to improve its appearance and to increase its
wet strength and oil resistance. It can be coated for higher
print quality and is also used in laminates with plastic or foil.
It is used to make small bags or wrappers for packaging
biscuits and confectionary.
 Greaseproof paper—greaseproof paper is made through a
process known as beating, in which the cellulose fibers
undergo a longer than normal hydration period that causes
the fibers to break up and become gelatinous. These fine
fibers then pack densely to provide a surface that is resistant
to oils but not wet agents. Greaseproof paper is used to wrap
snack foods, cookies, candy bars, and other oily foods, a use
that is being replaced by plastic films.
 Glassine—glassine is greaseproof paper taken to an extreme
(further hydration) to produce a very dense sheet with a
highly smooth and glossy finish. It is used as a liner for
biscuits, cooking fats, fast foods, and baked goods.
 Parchment paper—parchment paper is made from acid-
treated pulp (passed through a sulfuric acid bath). The acid
modifies the cellulose to make it smoother and impervious to
water and oil, which adds some wet strength. It does not
provide a good barrier to air and moisture, is not heat
sealable, and is used to package fats such as butter and lard.

 Paper laminates are coated or uncoated papers based on kraft
and sulfite pulp. They can be laminated with plastic or
aluminum to improve various properties. For example, paper
can be laminated with polyethylene to make it heat sealable
and to improve gas and moisture barrier properties.
Laminated paper is used to package dried products such as
soups, herbs, and spices (Marsh and Bugusu, 2007).
 Paperboards on the other hand are thicker than paper with a
higher weight per unit area and often made in multiple
layers. They are commonly used to make containers for
shipping—such as boxes, cartons, and trays—they are
seldom used for direct food contact. The various types of
paperboard are as follows.
 White board—made from several thin layers of bleached
chemical pulp, white board is typically used as the inner layer
of a carton. White board may be coated with wax or
laminated with polyethylene for heat sealability.
 Solid board—possessing strength and durability, solid board
has multiple layers of bleached sulfate board. When laminated
with polyethylene, it is used to create liquid cartons (known
as milk board). Solid board can also use to package fruit
juices and soft drinks.
 Chipboard—chipboard is made from recycled paper and
often contains blemishes and impurities from the original
paper, which makes it unsuitable for direct contact with food,
printing, and folding. It is often lined with white board to
improve both appearance and strength. The least expensive
form of paperboard, chipboard is used to make the outer
layers of cartons for foods such as tea and cereals.
 Fiberboard—Fiberboard can either be solid or corrugated. The
solid type has an inner white board layer and outer kraft layer and
provides good protection against impact and compression. When
laminated with plastics or aluminum, solid fiberboard can improve
barrier properties and is used to package dry products such as
coffee and milk powder. GSM:556 – 1758
 The corrugated type, also known as corrugated board, is made
with two layers of kraft paper with a central corrugating (or
fluting) material. Fiberboard's resistance to impact abrasion and
crushing damage makes it widely used for shipping bulk food and
case packing of retail food products.
Corrugated Fibre Board Box
 The packing material of the items depends on the products
nature and its usage. Corrugated Kraft Paper Board Box,
technically called Corrugated Fibre Board Box is the most
popular shipping container, now-a-days.

 Today, about 80% of all shipments in the world are being

made in fibre board boxes. In India, about 60% of the
packaging is being done with corrugated fibre board boxes.
 Corrugated boxes industry is a packaging industry.
Corrugated boxes are manufactured from paper.
 Initially the paper used for manufacturing was obtained from
wood pulp which is known as virgin paper.
 Now a days, in order to reduce the wastage and make
optimum utilization of resources, recycled quality paper is
also used which is known as non- virgin paper.
 Boxes were also made from bagasse (by product of sugar
cane), but it was not environment friendly. Thus, due to the
above reasons recycled paper is being largely used by the
industries today to manufacture corrugated boxes.
 Traditionally, corrugated is best known for its structural
strength that offers protection to packaged products
throughout the transportation cycle.

 Packaging done by corrugation helps in the movement of

goods from the manufacturer to the seller to the buyer
without any hassles of breakages, pilferage etc.
 Therefore the importance of corrugation is not only to the
seller but also to the buyer as it gives a form of safety
satisfaction to both.
 Corrugated boxes are easy to recognize. Corrugated is made
of paper and has an arched layer, called "fluting," between
smooth sheets, called "liner."
 The corrugated most commonly used to make boxes has one
layer of fluting between two smooth sheets. But there are
many types of corrugated available, each with different flute
sizes and thicknesses.
Design of Corrugated Boxes
 Corrugated paperboard has a sequence of air columns,
parallel to each other, running across the surface of the box.
 The air columns serve as cushioning and the series of paper
columns is what makes the material durable.
 The design of the box varies depending on the purpose of its
use.
 A manufacturer might choose to design corrugated boxes to
be sized and/or shaped to best suit the purpose it will be
used for.
Raw materials
 Fast-growing pine trees provide the primary raw material
used to make corrugated cardboard.
 After the trees are harvested, they are stripped of their
limbs; only the trunks will be shipped by truck to a pulp mill.
 At the mill, the harvested tree trunks are subjected to the
kraft process, also known as the sulfate process because of the
chemicals used to break down wood chips into fibrous pulp.
 After pulping and other processing, the fibers are sent
directly to the paper machine where they are formed,
pressed, dried, and rolled into the wide, heavy rolls of kraft
paper sent to corrugating plants to be made into cardboard.
 At the corrugating plant, only a few other raw materials are
needed to make a finished box. Corn starch glue is used to
bond the corrugated medium to the liner sheets.
 Other raw materials are used to finish the corrugated
cardboard after production. Waxes made from paraffin or
vegetable oils can be applied to make a water- or grease-
resistant container for food products.
 Brightly colored inks are also applied to create bold graphic
designs for self-supporting displays featuring product name,
information, and company name and logo.
 Pins: for pinning machine, pins are required. There
are two types of pins- aluminium and rust proof pins.
 Basically, rust proof pins are recommended as it is cost
effective and also because it does not rust.
 Aluminium pins cost Rs. 50/ kg. while rust proof pins cost
Rs. 38/ kg. and 1 kg. contains around 2000 pins.
 Also the wires used for these pins is MS Galvanised. The
thickness of the pin is around 16 guage.
 Single-face (A medium is glued to a linerboard.)
 board consists of one liner and one medium has two-
dimensional rigidity – used as a cushioning material

 Single wall : (A medium is glued between two linerboards.)

 When a second liner is applied on the other side of single
faced board, sheet called single-wall board has three-
dimensional rigidity , is the standard board used in
corrugated boxes

 Addition of single-face to single-wall board results in double

wall (5 layer) and triple wall (7 layer) – application in
packaging large, heavy objects
The purpose of FLUTES
 The concept of an arch is that if shaped properly, it maximizes the strength of
the area it spans. The design of FLUTES, when attached to linerboards in
a cardboard box, adheres to this concept by being shaped in such a manner
as to allow it to withstand immense force and extreme pliability.

 The layers of flutes combine together to form an abundant series of arched

columns that act as a stabilizer in supporting heavy loads.

 At the same time, the space beneath the arches of flutes serves its purpose by
acting as cushioning for whatever is placed in the cardboard box.

 The linerboard attached is essential to the upkeep of the flutes for the purpose
of protecting it from damage as well as adding to its strength.

 Interestingly enough, the flutes also provide some level of protection from
abrupt temperature adjustments in its surroundings area.
 Please note, to the right, the diagrams indications of the
various flute sizes currently manufactured on the market:
F – is the smallest flute size shown.
E – is the second to smallest flute size.
C – is considered the medium flute size.
B – is smaller than the “C” size and bigger than the “E” size.
A – is the largest flute size and most commonly used on the
market.
Standard Flute Sizes Used in Corrugated Board
Type of flute Height of flute, cm Number of flute, per meter
A 0.470 110
B 0.246 154
C 0.361 128
E 0.114 315
 While there are a number of new specialized flute sizes
currently being worked on for production, the ones listed
above are the most common ones available and as noted
above, already on the market for purchase.
 The largest and larger flutes tend to be used for handling
boxes since it can handle more pressure on top of it and the
smaller flutes are used mostly for smaller retail cardboard
box purposes.
 Depending on the purpose the cardboard box is used for,
various sizes of flutes can be combined in creating the
particular box in such a manner as to cause the box to adjust
its handling ability as a result of the particular combination of
different sizes of flutes attached to the linerboard in creating
the cardboard box.
The manufacturing process

 Manufacturing a corrugated cardboard box begins with the

pulping of wood chips in the kraft (sulfate) process. First, tree
trunks are stripped of bark and torn into small chips. Next, these
chips are placed in a large, high-pressure tank called a batch
digester, where they are cooked in a solution, or liquor, made of
sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and several other ionic compounds
such as sulfates, sulfides, and sulfites.
 These strongly alkaline chemicals dissolve the lignin, the glue-like
substance that holds the individual wood fibers together in a tree
trunk. When the pressure is released after several hours, the wood
chips explode like popcorn into fluffy masses of fiber.
 After additional cleaning and refining steps, a consistent
slurry of wood pulp is pumped to the paper-making machine,
also known as a Fourdrinier machine. Gigantic, square
structures up to 600 feet long (182.88 meters), these
machines contain a wire mesh in which the paper is initially
formed. Next, the paper is fed into massive, steam-heated
rollers and wide felt blankets that remove the water. At the
end, the finished medium, or liner, is rolled for shipment.
 Rolls of kraft paper for corrugating are available in many
sizes to fit the production equipment at different corrugating
plants. The most common roll sizes are 67 inches (170.18
centimeters) wide and 87 inches (220.98 centimeters) wide.
An 87-inch roll of heavier paper can weigh up to 6,000
pounds (2,724 kilograms).

At the plant, the kraft paper is separated into different

grades, which will be used for the medium and the liner.
 These different grades of corrugated cardboard can be made
by combining different grades of kraft paper
 Corrugated board is manufactured on a very large and
specialized machine called a corrugator .
 First , the medium is conditioned with heat and steam and
then passed between two fluted metal rolls to form the
corrugation. Starch adhesive is applied to the tips of the
flutes, and conditioned liner is brought into contact with the
flute tips to form the adhesive bond
 For a large production run, additional rolls are loaded into
automatic splicers. Sensitive detectors check the rolls of
paper feeding into the corrugator. When a roll is nearly
empty, the corrugator control system starts a splicer, and
paper from the new roll is joined to the end of the paper
going through the machine. Thus, production of corrugated
cardboard is continuous, and no production speed is lost.
 The medium to be corrugated is fed into the giant,
electrically driven rollers of the corrugator, first through the
preheating rollers and then into the corrugating rolls. Steam
at 175 to 180 pounds of pressure per square inch (psi) is
forced through both sets of rollers, and, as the paper passes
through them, temperatures reach 350 to 365 degrees
Fahrenheit (177 to 185 degrees Celsius).
 When the hot paper passes between the corrugating rolls, the
flutes trap and bend it, forming the middle part of a sheet of
corrugated cardboard.
 Each corrugating machine has interchangeable corrugating
rolls featuring different flute sizes. Installing a flute size in the
corrugator changes the width of the corrugated medium.


 The medium travels next to a set of rollers called the single-
facer glue station. Here, one layer of liner is glued to the
medium. Starch glue is carefully applied to the corrugated
edges of the medium, and the first layer of liner is added.
From the single-facer, the medium and liner go to the
double-backer glue station where the other layer of liner
from the bridge is added following the same procedure.
Continuing through the corrugator, the cardboard passes
over steam-heated plates that cure the glue.
Forming the blanks into boxes

 At the end of corrugator, a slitter-scorer trims the cardboard and cuts it into
large sheets called box blanks. Box blanks pop out of the slitter-scorer like wide
slices of toast and slide into an automatic stacker that loads them onto a large,
rolling platform.

 From here, they will be transported to the other machines that will convert
them into finished containers.

 Skilled production workers use a computer terminal and printer to prepare a

job ticket for each stack of box blanks produced by the corrugator.

 With the job ticket, workers can route the stack to the right fabrication
machines, called flexos (the name is short for flexographic machine). A flexo is a
wide, flat machine that processes box blanks.
Types of paper used for corrugated
board
 Virgin – from agri. raw material eg. baggase, rice husk,
 bamboo, etc.
 Recycled - from paper garbage / waste.
 Paper products are made of long and short fibres.
 Long fibres come from soft wood.
 Short fibres come from hardwood.
 Long fibres give strength and flexibility - tensile, able to
 withstand tearing and bursting.
 Short fibres give stiffness, opacity, smoothness, etc.