WET STRENGTH PAPER REPULPING: LABORATORY EVALUATION

The recycling of wet strength papers in a normal recycling mill is often troublesome due to the severe operating conditions required to defibre wet strength papers. The various methods are presented which will quickly allow mills to determine the most effective pulping aids to use when repulping wet strength papers. The repulping of wet strength paper with inorganic chemicals was investigated in the laboratory. The effects of major variables, that is, repulping time, pulp consistency, soaking time, temperature, and reactant concentration in the repulping stage were examined using Plackett-Burman design. The repulping time was the most crucial & influential process variable affecting repulping characteristic and formation related properties. The more significant repulping process variables affecting pulp yield were repulping time, soaking temperature and pulp consistency whereas for formation index and feature size, repulping time, pulp consistency, soaking temperature and time were the more important variables. The formation index is increased by an increase in repulping time, pulp consistency and soaking time whereas the feature size is decreased by an increase in repulping time, soaking temperature and pulp consistency. The formation index and the rejects were more sensitive to changes in process variables than were the feature size or the pulp yield. The pulp recycled from wet strength waste paper had good physical strength properties.