=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1152/paper44
|storemode=property
|title=APMP: an Alternative for Packaging Industry
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1152/paper44.pdf
|volume=Vol-1152
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/haicta/RamezaniKT11
}}
==APMP: an Alternative for Packaging Industry==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1152/paper44.pdf
APMP: an alternative for Packaging Industry
Omid Ramezani1, Hossein Kermanian1, Mohammad Angoraj Taghavi2
1
Department of Cellulose and Paper Technology, Faculty of New Technologies and
Energy, Zirab Science and Technology Park, Shahid Beheshti University, Zirab, Savadkoh,
Mazandaran, Iran, e-mail: O_Ramezani@sbu.ac.ir, Kermanina_h@yahoo.com
2
Pulping Division, Atrak Paper Manufacturing Company, Isfahan, Iran (Former Address:
APMP Pulping Division, Maragheh Paper Industries Company, Maragheh, East Azarbayejan,
Iran), e-mail: mrahmaninia@yahoo.com
Abstract. APMP process has been conventionally used to produce writing and
printing papers. Maragheh Paper Industries Company (MPIC) was first
company in Iran which started producing alkaline peroxide mechanical pulp
(APMP) on a new Andritz 50000 tones/year at its mill in Maragheh city
followed by establishment of another 50000 tones/year in Kermanshah city,
Iran. Due to lack of required chemicals for the process including H2O2,
Sodium Silicates, DTPA and Magnesium Sulfate and the subsequent high
production costs mill trials were performed to examine the suitability of APMP
process for producing packaging paperboards for which only alkaline addition
is adequate. Different ranges of Alkali dosage were experimented and the
resulted pulps were both evaluated online using FiberScan System supplied by
Andritz and the laboratory tests. The results from this investigation
demonstrated that APMP can be utilized as an alternative to produce standard
quality packaging pulp and paper other than the printing purposes using less
production costs.
Keywords: Pulp and Paper Industry, APMP, Packaging Papers, Bleaching,
Strength Properties.
1 Introduction
Pulp and Paper industry is changing rapidly; environmental concerns will be the big
issue of the new developing industrial generation focusing on paper recycling and
new pulping and bleaching technologies. NSSC pulp produced from a wide selection
of raw material has been traditionally used to supply the fluting paperboard used in
the packaging industry thanks to special strength properties in the end product RCT
and CMT supported by extensive literatures published (1-9). Environmental issues
towards sulfur-free processes (10- 11) have been the driving force for replacement of
neutral sulfite semi-chemical pulps with recycled (12-14) and mechanical pulps (15-
________________________________
Copyright ©by the paper’s authors. Copying permitted only for private and academic purposes.
In: M. Salampasis, A. Matopoulos (eds.): Proceedings of the International Conference on Information
and Communication Technologies
for Sustainable Agri-production and Environment (HAICTA 2011), Skiathos, 8-11 September, 2011.
499
19) in the packaging industry and the recent fiber analysis have confirmed this
altering trend (20-21). In Iran, the recycling fibers, however, do not meet the quality
specifications required for the packaging industry and particularly the corrugating
medium especially in the small papermaking mills because of the lack of certain wet
end chemistry strategy and not economically compromising the use of different
chemicals.
The APMP process was first introduced at the 1989 International Mechanical
Pulping Conference (22). Since then, a number of studies have been reported from
the Andritz Pilot Plant in Springfield, Ohio on the characteristics of the APMP
process, on how it compares to CTMP and pre-bleached CTMP, and on its
application to various wood species (23-26).
Generally, APMP is used most favorably for two special areas in high-yield
pulping. One area involves high-brightness pulp grades when peroxide bleaching is
necessary. The other involves a specific hardwood species for which caustic
pretreatment is needed to reduce energy consumption and, more importantly, to
obtain acceptable pulp strength. Alkaline Peroxide Pulping is conventionally used to
produce writing and printing grades, but because of high Lignin content and the
physical properties, the end product might have some applications in the packaging
papers.
In the area of achieving high brightness with peroxide bleaching, a certain amount
of sodium hydroxide has to be applied. In the APMP process, both sodium hydroxide
(NaOH) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) are applied prior to refining. Not only does
the sodium hydroxide function as a necessary component of bleaching reagents, but it
also softens the fibers. As a result, the refining energy is reduced, and the pulp is
improved by having greater strength and lower shive content. In this way, the
chemical potential of sodium hydroxide is realized more fully, and the long fiber
content is better preserved.
The APMP process, like conventional CMP or CTMP, consists of two primary
components—impregnation and refining. During the impregnation stage, chips are
steamed, pressed, chemically impregnated, and retained in the reaction bin to allow
the chemical reactions to run to completion. Fiberization and fibrillation are
completed with conventional atmospheric refining. The key to the success of any
APMP process lies in chip impregnation. The goal at the impregnation stage is to
achieve the best efficiency with the chemicals used. These chemicals include not
only caustic and peroxide chemicals but stabilizers including DTPA, Sodium Silicate
and Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom salt). The optimization of the conditions depends on
the wood species and the requirements for pulp quality. Careful selection of species
ensures the high brightness product unless reaching to the target brightness is not
feasible.
Two APMP pulp mills were delivered to Iran by Andritz AG, Vienna, Austria to
Gharb Paper Industries (GPIC), Bakhtaran Province and Maragheh Paper Industries
(MPIC), Azarbayejan Province with the production capacity of 50000 ton/year from
500
which the latter was successfully started up in 2006. The mill has been designed to
produce writing and printing grades. The mill process variables have been
customized for two local selected species i.e. Populus alba and Populus nigra. Soon
after the start-up and commissioning of the factory, use of other various Populus
species and hardwoods other than the above mentioned ones became indispensible
due to the lack of industrial plantation which high variation in the brightness level
affected the market demand for the final product. Moreover, lack of an industrial
production plant for any of the chemicals used (except Sodium Hydroxide) escalated
the shipping and handling problems increasing the production costs. This paper
reports the mill trials carried out in MPIC to modify the process for the production of
corrugating medium.
2 Materials and Methods
Table 1. ISIRI number 3488- Corrugating Meduim Paper; Properties and Test Methods.
CD
MD Water
Basis Ring Concora Air Moisture
Caliper Breaking Capillary
Weight Crush Medium Resistance Content
2 (mm) Length Absorption
(gr/m ) Test Test (N) (S) * (%)
(Km) * (mm)
(N)
0.19 12
115 177 35
-0.23 5
0.20 12
120 4 184 8± 0
-0.24 9
40 1.5
0.21 13
125 190
-0.25 5
0.26 20
160 240
-0.31 4
45
0.29 22
180 269
-0.34 9
* Minimum values
A mixture of Populus species including P. alba, P. nigra, P. euroamerican and P.
deltoids chips was selected to supply the pulp mill. No certain selection for the
Populus alba and Populus nigra applied as the pulp mill was designed for. PulpExpert
PEX131 supplied by Andritz, recorded the results of the process modification on the
strength properties excluding RCT and CMT which were determined separately
according to Tappi standards. The target was to reach to minimum requirements for
the corrugating medium as specified by the institute of standards and industrial
research of Iran, ISRI number 3488 (table 1).
501
2 Results and Discussion
The standard consumption of chemicals in MPIC formulated by Andritz AG is
presented in table 2.
Table 2. Standard Consumption of Chemicals in Maragheh Paper Industries Company
(MPIC), Azarbayejan, Iran.
Chemicals
Na2Sio Epsom
H2O2 NaoH DTPA
3 Salt
(Kg/AD (Kg/AD (Kg/AD
Process (Kg/AD (Kg/AD
MT) * MT) MT)
MT) MT) ×
Impregnati
20 45 18 3 1.5
on No. 1
Impregnati
25 30 17 2 1
on No. 2
*Air Dried Metric Ton APMP Pulp;
× Magnesium Sulfate, the application ceased after start up according to Andritz's
process modification.
Table 3. Results Obtained with and without the Presence of Bleaching-enhancing
Chemicals in the Standard Consumption of Chemicals.
Ring Air
Tensile Breaking Concora
Freeness Brightnes Crush Resist
index Length Medium
(CSF) s (%) Test ance
(Nm/g) (Km) Test (N)
(N) (S)
With
bleaching 12
215 70.5 49.6 5.10 195 43
enhancing 2
chemicals
no
bleaching 11
236 37.8 48.5 4.95 180 38
enhancing 9
chemicals
The main objective was the production of a modified refiner mechanical pulp with
solely NaOH usage. According to the standard consumption of chemicals, two pulp
mill trials with the presence of bleaching-enhancing chemicals and without the
bleaching-enhancing chemicals keeping constant the other production variables were
studied. The results determined by PulpExpert PEX131 and laboratory measurements
are demonstrated in table 3.
Table 4. Response of Pulp Physical and Mechanical Properties to Different Alkaline
Dosages.
502
Analysis Treatmen 56 75 86
t (Kg/AD (Standa (Kg/AD
MT) rd) MT)
Freeness ml, cs 236 236 202
Air Resistance Gurley, s 50 38 35
Burst Index Kpa.m2/g 1.08 2.06 2.87
Tear Index mN.m2/g 3.22 4.49 5.06
Tensile Index N.m/g 28.2 48.5 64.3
stretch % 1.13 1.45 2.12
TEA J/m2 13 27 53
Ring Crush
(N) 116 119 145
Test
Concora
(N) 170 180 210
Medium Test
Scattering
Cm2/g 613 533 407
Coefficient
Brightness T 525, % 39 37.8 35
Specific (KWh/AD
1200 1100 950
Energy MT)
As indicated in table 3, presence of bleaching-enhancing chemicals affected slight
improvement in the physical and mechanical properties of the pulp. The authors
failed to find evidence explaining this effect, however, coagulation effect of chelating
agents for extractives, metal ions and other contaminants should increase the
effectiveness of sodium hydroxide functionality to soften the fibers and subsequently
preserve the long fiber content. Also, table 3 suggests that removing the bleaching-
enhancing chemicals diminishes some physical and mechanical properties below the
503
required range outlined in the Iranian corrugating standard (table 1). In order to
compensate the inferior physical properties and to clarify the alkali charge effect, two
alkaline dosage ranges, 56 and 86 Kg/ADMT were corresponded to standard alkaline
dosage of 75 Kg/ADMT (table 4).
Reduction of alkaline charge in no-bleaching-enhancing chemical treatment to 56
Kg/ADMT deteriorated the pulp properties far below the standard specifications with
the increase in specific energy consumption corresponding to 1200 KWh/ADMT.
Charge of 86 Kg/ADMT alkaline improved the physical properties and reduced
specific energy consumption to 950 (KWh/ADMT).
Fig. 1. Comparison of paper properties between the two packaging papers produced in MPIC
and Mazandaran.
A comparison of paper properties between the two packaging papers produced in
MPIC and Mazandaran Wood and Paper Company is shown in fig 1. As evident from
the figure, the properties of paperboard produced in MPIC are almost identical or
superior to the properties of the corrugating medium produced in Mazandaran Wood
and Paper Company.
Conclusion
The results from this investigation demonstrated that APMP can be utilized as an
alternative to produce standard quality packaging pulp and paper other than the
printing purposes using less production costs and with properties comparable to the
packaging paperboard of Mazandaran Wood and Paper Company.
504
Acknowledgments. The authors would like to thank Maragheh Paper Industries
Company for the kind support in the production trials.
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