Pulping of Wood

Pulping of Wood
Pulp production can be divided into two major types:

Mechanical pulping

Chemical pulping

Mechanical pulping does not separate the cellulose fiber from the lignin in
the wood, while chemical pulping does.
 Mechanical pulping
Disintegration of wood by grinding of logs or refining of chips results in the
formation of mechanical pulps

Mechanical pulps are used predominantly for newsprint, magazines, and

catalogues

Yield of pulp is in the order of 95-98 %

Wood source for mechanical pulp is mainly spruce

Two different commercial processes:

i) wood is processed either in the form of logs treated in grinders
(groundwood), or
ii) wood chips that are converted to pulp by mechanical work in a refiner
 Mechanical pulping

Grinder Double disc refiner

In the groundwood process, debarked logs are pressed against a rotating grindstone,
which is simultaneously cleaned and cooled by using shower water.
In the refiner, wood chips are first disintegrated to fibres and fibre fragments; between
two parallel patterned refiner discs with narrow gap, either one or both of them are
rotating, fibres are torned.
Groundwood pulps (GWD) have for a long time been produced in non-pressurized
systems.
In recent systems the logs are preheated and processed under pressurised steam. The
temperature in systems for production of pressurised groundwood (PGW) can vary from
100 °C to 140 °C.
Refiner pulp is usually produced in a so-called thermomechanical pulping processes
(TMP).
Short preheating of the chips in steam in the interval 115–155 °C the chips are refined in
a pressurised system.
Refiner pulp, which is produced without preheating, is called refiner mechanical pulp
(RMP).
Chemi-thermomechanical pulp (CTMP) is a special type of TMP.
In CTMP processes the chips are initially impregnated with small amounts of lignin
softening chemicals (mild sulfite solutions), and then heated with steam to
approximately the same temperature interval as in the TMP process.

Q) Why lignin softening chemicals are impregnated?

Chemical treatment results in paper with higher tear resistance than TMP or GWD pulp.
But pulp yields decrease slightly to between 85 and 90 % with CTMP.
The final pulp quality is controlled by the energy input to the mechanical processing of
the fibre material.
 Mechanical pulping
Mechanical pulps consist of a mix of fibres, fibre fragments and fines which have been
created during the processing.

• Wide distribution of size fractions

• Lignin rich
• Form sheets with sufficient mechanical strength
• Fines and more flexible fibre fragments act as binders between the long and stiff
fibres.
• Mechanical pulps are usually used in furnishes together with chemical pulp to
increase the the bonding strength.
Mechanical and chemi-mechanical pulps have particularly two quality advantages:
i) sheets from mechanical pulp have considerably higher opacity than sheets from chemical
pulps, because the light scattering surface at a given strength is larger

ii) higher fibre stiffness in mechanical and chemi-mechanical pulps contributes to sheet
structures giving lower densities
Sheets from spruce CTMP have a high bulk (low density) at a certain
strength
 Groundwood Process
Oldest pulping process with wood as raw material
Two types of grinders are most commonly used today
chain grinders and batch-wise hydraulically pressed grinders
 Groundwood Process

The diameters of the stones in grinders are approximate l.8 m.

The grinding zone varies between 1.0–1.6 m.
The stones are rotated at approximately 300 rpm.
 Groundwood Process

The stones are mounted on a cylindrical core and are made of ceramic segments
with grits of silicon carbide or aluminum oxide.

Size of the grits varies in the range between 0.15–0.45 mm.

Quality of the groundwood pulp is determined by the pressure between the grits
and the wood and the peripheral speed of the stone, beside the size and shape of
the grits.

The grinding is done in a system that is pressurised by air to 3–5 bars.

 Advantages and Disadvantages of MP

Advantages
• Automatic and Continuous
• The process gives a high yield

Disadvantages
• The fibers produced can be very short and often
must be combined with expensive chemical fibers to
be strong enough to pass through the paper machine
and subsequent coating and printing processes
 Fibre release and grinding mechanism
Occurs in three phases:

(i) Wood fibre is softened mechanically and thermally, when the wood is compressed
by the passing grits

(ii) Fibres are released when the softened fibres in a layer closest to the rotation
stone are torn away.

(iii) Finally there is a certain after-treatment of the released fibres when they are
removed from the grinding zone.
 Refiner Pulp
The TMP system

Developed during the 1930’s

Different types of chip refiners.
 Refiner Pulp
The CTMP system:
For production of CTMP the “TMP-plant” is equipped with a unit for
impregnation of the chips with chemicals.
Softwood chips are usually impregnated with 2–3 % of a weak alkali sodium sulphite
solution (pH = 9.5), while for hardwood a stronger alkaline impregnation solution is
used in combination with sodium sulfite (Na2SO3) or hydrogen peroxide (H2O2).
CTMP system
CTMP system