Paper Technology International Vol.61 No.2 Summer 2020

Contents

Volume 61 Number 2

Summer 2020

Published by PITA

5 Frecheville Court, Bury, Lancs BL9 0UF

Tel: 0300 3020 150

Tel: +44 161 746 5858 (from outside the UK)

Fax: 0300 3020 160 email: info@pita.co.uk website: www.pita.co.uk

Editor Daven Chamberlain

St Johns House

Spring Lane

Cookham Dean Berks SL6 9PN

Tel: 0300 3020 159 email: editor@pita.co.uk

UK Advertising Sales

Contact the PITA Office

Tel: 0300 3020 150 Email: info@pita.co.uk

European Representative

Nicolas Pelletier

RNP

16 Rue Bannier – 45000 Orleans, France

Tel: +33 6 82 25 12 06

Fax: +33 2 38 42 29 10 email: europe@pita.co.uk

Designed and typeset by Upstream Ltd, Deepcar, South Yorkshire Printed by Mixam UK Watford, Herts

Regulating Furnish Electrokinetic Parameters

How to Judge Felt Test Trials (Feltest)

Nanoparticle-based Antimicrobial Paper

Biomaster Antimicrobial Range (Addmaster)

Gas Barrier Properties of Coatings (Versaperm)

Intelligent Energy Management (GridBeyond)

Paper and Packaging Round-up (APP)

Nanoparticle Binders (EcoSynthetix)

Algae: the Forest in a Flask (PITA)

Millennials and the Circular Economy (DS Smith)

Paper Alternatives to Single Use Plastics (CPI)

Conference / Exhibition / Meeting Reports

Formulation for Sustainable Packaging (Solenis)

To create some much-needed atmosphere, DS Smith has developed its ‘Return to Sport’ range, a series of customisable and fully recyclable options for clubs which can be purchased via its website. Each bespoke ‘fan’ is made from recycled materials and designed to easily slip over existing stadium seating. As a result of DS Smith’s digital print capabilities, the range can be custom printed to celebrate individual fans’ faces or messages of support and represent team colours, sponsors or charitable partnerships.

Comment

and Promotion of Paper Towels

Right at the start of the current pandemic one main message was pushed above all others – hand hygiene. Washing with warm water and soap for twenty seconds was seen as the biggest single method of preventing infection; failing that, use of alcohol-based hand sanitiser was a secondary measure. What the initial guidance did not mention was the corollary to hand washing – hand drying.

This is a subject we have covered a number of times in the pages of Paper Technology International, and it is worth review ing what has been printed previously. In this it is important to acknowledge the work of ETS – The European Tissue Sympo sium – who has funded a number of research studies over the last decade aimed at highlighting differences between various methods of hand drying systems. These are important because hand washing with soap never removes all microbes from the hands; some will remain, and if hands are not dried, then the mi crobes can transfer to any surfaces touched with wet hands via the liquid water. This is why hand drying is just as important as hand washing.

There are four main methods that are used for hand drying:

Textile towels

Paper towels

Hot-air dryers (low air velocity, high heat)

Jet dryers (high air velocity, low heat)

In our own homes we all probably use textile towels. These are fine to a point, but microbes do build up which means there is cross-contamination between individuals in a household who use the same towel, so they should be changed and laundered regularly (preferably at 60°C or above).

In the commercial world, all four methods are in use, although the textile towel will usually be a roller-towel which each indi vidual pulls to access a fresh (clean and dry) portion. These are very-much in the minority now, and are seldom met with in com mercial rest rooms (the delightful British Library being one no table exception).

By contrast, paper towels were once the mainstay of rest rooms, but by and large have been superseded in recent years by electrically-heated air dryers, the supposed reason being that deal ing with paper waste costs time and money. (Also, there was no danger of dropping an air-dryer down a toilet bowl, whereas dis posing of paper towels in this was a common cause of blockages.)

Before going further, it should be noted that textile and paper towels act both by removing liquid water, and by acting as a ‘sink’ for microbes and surface dirt that are removed by surface contact and abrasion during rubbing with the towel.

So to hot air dryers, of which there are the two sorts noted above. The older style, which can still be met with in many places of ease, use low air velocity and take seemingly ages to

dry hands sufficiently – such that many customers (including me) will often give up and either wipe hands on clothing or sim ply exit the rest room with wet hands – and so the problem of contamination transference noted previously can take place. For this reason, many establishments, when they have upgraded fa cilities, have gone for the most modern approach – high velocity jet driers that blow the liquid water away from the skin surface. There is no doubt that they are highly effective at removing water, which is their primary purpose, but they do this by creat ing an aerosol of water droplets which contaminate surfaces near the dryer.

And herein lies the problem. COVID-19 is known to be trans mitted as an aerosol, which is why we are told to ‘socially dis tance’ when meeting people, because every time we speak, breath, cough or sneeze, we release liquid droplets that could contain the virus. So, if someone infected with COVID-19 is less than diligent at washing their hands, such that the virus particles have not been suitably denatured by the action of soap, the jet drier gives a perfect dispersal mechanism by which surfaces in rest rooms can become contaminated.

Research by ETS has shown many times that jet dryers, which have become the favoured mode of hand drying in many com mercial rest rooms, have significant propensity to cause contam ination due to aerosol dispersion. Now we have a pandemic where a virus is known to spread by exactly the same method. Surely there cannot be a better time for the paper towel and hy giene sector to start promoting their product as a safer alternative to electric hand driers. As Winston Churchill opined, “Never waste a good crisis”, and COVID-19 is nothing if not that!

As the Black Lives Matter protests have shown recently, once you get a head of steam a movement becomes difficult to stop. Conversely, wait and you might just miss the opportunity.

Already, in its guidance to reopening businesses, Preston City Council has issued directions that include, “Instruct employees to clean their hands frequently … provide paper towels and turn off hand dryers to prevent the spread of air borne particles.” In recent months the Daily Mail, Guardian, Metro, Mirror, Wash ington Post and Sky News have all run stories in which people have been urged to ditch “high tech” and go with paper. This has long been known in the NHS, who participated in ETS studies, and this advice has been backed up in The Nursing Times

The Paper Towel business has got a ready-made opportunity to promote its product, positively, and so fight back against its arch-rival of recent years. Let’s hope the hygiene sector makes the most of this opportunity while it is still high in the public consciousness – and also let’s hope we do not see anything like this pandemic happen again!

Daven Chamberlain

Faster repair is in sight

ABB Ability™ Remote Insights for service

A collaborative app that reduces the time to resolution. A service tool that allows field personnel to remotely connect with ABB experts. All backed by cutting-edge augmented reality technology that enables real-time instructions via annotations during live video calls. ABB Ability™ Remote Insights for service will help you troubleshoot faster, improve safety, and increase productivity at your pulp and paper mill. To find out more, contact your Pulp and Paper Account Managers:

Paul

Industry News

UK NEWS

At the beginning of April, Arjowiggins Group Stoneywood Mill undertook an extended maintenance shutdown after the Scottish government stated that non-essential businesses should close unless they were capable of operating in a way that was fully compliant with social distancing advice. Following this early period, new guidelines were issued by Government and the mill started to re-open in early May, and a week later it was fully open, after which it ramped up production rates such that by the end of May it was again in full operation. Part of the process has involved introduction of screens, and moving of some control panels. According to Angus MacSween, the General Manager, “The workforce has come up with some fantastic ingenious de signs to make it happen.” Meanwhile, some of the 420 employ ees continue to work from home.

Corrugated sheet manufacturer CorrBoard UK Ltd has re ceived new investment from two of its major shareholders. VPK Group NV has increased its shareholding to become a 50% shareholder, through a subscription for new shares and the ac quisition of the stake of former shareholder Garthwest; sepa rately, McLaren Packaging, one of CorrBoard’s founding partners, has also subscribed for new shares. VPK produces re cycled paper and paper-based packaging, with markets in food and beverages, consumer goods and e-commerce, tubes and cores. CorrBoard will shortly be installing a new £1.5m auto mated palletisation system at its 320,000 sq. ft. North Lin colnshire plant as well as significant IT control system upgrades.

DS Smith has implemented new measuring technologies across Europe, including Kemsley Mill, with an aim of improv ing the quality of raw materials and increase transparency with suppliers. Initially the technology was employed at both the Rouen paper mill in Northern France and at the Duenas paper mill in Northern Spain. Due to its success at those mills, the tech nology has now been installed at Zărnești mill in Romania and Kemsley mill in the UK, the largest mill for recycled papers in UK and the second largest in Europe. Under the new process, trucks arriving at a mill must pass through a ‘Moisture Gate’ which irradiates the area between the antennas and scans the load using microwave technology. In less than one minute an accurate moisture content readout is delivered, helping to measure the quality of material going into the mill.

Glatfelter in Lydney, Gloucestershire, has now modernised the end section of the PM8 with Bellmer technology. Part of the delivery was a soft nip calender TurboCal; in addition to the paper web and rope guidance system, a TurboReeler pope reel completed the upgrade. Also, it was equipped with the BellDur system, which monitors and controls the winding hardness from the core to the maximum diameter.

Krystals Premier Packaging, based in Lincoln, UK, and Progroup, based in Landau, Germany, will invest jointly to cre ate a packaging park at Progroup’s sheetfeeding site in Ellesmere Port. The packaging park is being constructed over a total area of around 16,000 m² and will be completed in the second half of 2020. Krystals will build a new production site which will be linked to Progroup’s operation via a conveyer bridge for the cor rugated board. IT systems will also be interconnected.

Northwood Hygiene Products Ltd announced the proposed closure of their converting facility in Penygroes, Gwynedd. The

company said: “As part of a strategic review of business opera tions, given the rapidly changing landscape and market condi tions, the directors of Northwood Hygiene Products Ltd regret to announce the proposed closure of the Penygroes manufactur ing facility. As part of the review, various alternative options were considered, but the contraction in market demand as a con sequence of COVID-19, and the subsequent significant fall in current and forecasted sales volumes has led to this very difficult decision being made. Production will be absorbed, and cus tomers will be serviced from other Northwood sites in Telford, Oldham, Birmingham, Lancaster and Bromsgrove.” Meanwhile, questions are being asked by the local MP (Hywel Williams) and MS (Siân Gwenllian), regarding the background to this decision, since at the beginning of the lockdown the factory was operating at “unprecedented order levels”. 94 jobs are affected.

Saica (UK) Ltd has submitted plans to extend its Northamp tonshire facility at Thrapston, and so add a new warehouse/stor age area, with conveyor link between the existing building and extension, a new HGV yard adding 11 HGV parking bays, and an additional car park. Elsewhere, Saica Pack at Telford has taken delivery of a new Lamina 2200 GL gluing and taping machine.

UPM Caledonian extended a planned maintenance shut in mid-March due to the pandemic, but restarted on 20-21 April. A spokesman said: “We can confirm that our Caledonian Paper Mill had been standing still due to extended maintenance which has been prolonged in light of the corona situation.” UPM said it was planning to use shift arrangements, temporary layoffs, or reduced working hours as required to adjust its operations in dif ferent scenarios due to the virus crisis. The mill makes LWC magazine grades with an annual capacity of 250,000 tonnes.

Vernacare has been providing the NHS with infection control products for 50 years, but since the outbreak of Coronavirus the global demand for its single-use disposable containers and mac erators has reached an unprecedented scale. The healthcare com pany, based in Folds Road, Bolton, has increased production by 60%, as healthcare facilities follow WHO advice that ‘single use and disposable’ equipment is needed to minimise the risk of virus transmission.

WEPA has submitted plans for a £100m expansion at their Bridgend site, to include the construction of a second hygiene tissue paper production line along with new pulp storage and bale handling areas, a high-bay warehouse for up to 35,000 pal lets, a shipping area and more. It will enable the company to ex pand capacity to 115,000tpy.

BENELUX NEWS

Burgo Ardennes Mill in Belgium took extended downtime (for ten days) amid COVID-19 concerns, “in order to guarantee the health and safety of its employees and in line with the latest indications from the Belgian authorities.” Belgium’s publicbroadcasting organisation RTBF reported on the situation at the mill on different occasions in March amid the growing number of coronavirus cases in the Belgian region bordering France’s Grand Est, and increasing number of illness-related absences at Burgo Ardennes plant, including proven cases of COVID-19. The site restarted operations on 30 March.

DS Smith has partnered with one of the world’s leading man ufacturers of building products to close the loop and solve a short

age of raw materials. Since 2014, staff at the De Hopp Mill in the Netherlands have collaborated on a project with Fermacell, a subsidiary of James Hardie Europe GmbH – an international mar ket leader for fibre cement building materials. Fermacell has tra ditionally used paper for recycling (PfR), such as magazines and newsprint, as a raw material to produce their unique range of gyp sum fibre boards; however, during this project they used fibrous rejects from De Hoop as an alternative raw material – a true ex ample of the Circular Economy in operation. Through this part nership, the De Hoop Paper Mill is diverting 100% of its fibrous rejects from waste into new products, and the parent company is now investigating the viability of extending this innovation across other mills and Fermacell plants across Europe.

A new geothermal heating plant is planned in the municipality of Renkum in the middle of the Netherlands. The plant will allow around 5,000 homes and a paper company to utilise geothermal energy for heat supply. Smurfit Kappa Parenco in Renkum, one of the participants in the project, has been positive about the gen eration of geothermal energy for years; with the help of geother mal energy, the factory can make its steam production fully sustainable.

Stora Enso Langerbrugge Mill in Belgium has successfully undertaken recycling trials with paper cups, verifying a process that will cut the carbon footprint of disposable paper cups by a compelling 50%.

Sappi suspended production on one paper machine at the Lanaken coated woodfree and magazine paper mill, in Belgium, in order to adapt output to falling demand. According to Euwid, production on coated fine paper machine PM 7 was temporarily stopped in reaction to the current lower demand for graphic pa pers caused by the effects of COVID-19.

A fire broke out in the recovered paper yard of the VPK Oudegem plant in Belgium on Monday 27 April, which required the intervention of several surrounding fire brigades. The fire was under control, the fire department reported, the next day, and fire-fighting operations were ended on Wednesday afternoon. At the Oudegem plant, this was the third fire in just one year, ac cording to reports on site. No details have been issued on the ex tent of the damage. The mill produces recovered paper-based corrugated case material on three machines and has a production capacity of approximately 550,000 tonnes per year.

PITA CORPORATE SUPPLIER NEWS

ABB has launched its KPM KC9 Optical Consistency Trans mitter family, a new range of sensors that provide accurate mea surement of total and/or ash consistency for better wet end measurement and control in pulp and paper processes. The sen sors are suitable for pulp, paper, board and tissue manufacturers using virgin or recycled raw materials, particularly those using ash fillers, where only optical sensors are effective to measure ash consistency. Available as either inline or bypass sensors, the entire KPM KC9 Optical Consistency Transmitter family offers the widest range of sensor options currently available and is best suited to measure the lowest consistency ranges.

Kemira has set a target of 30% reduction in combined socalled Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030, from the 2018 baseline of 0.93 MTCO2e. The long-term ambition is to be carbon neutral across the whole company by 2045 for combined scope 1 and 2 emissions. The key solutions that will enable emissions reductions include: sourcing zeroemission electricity, switching to renewables for their sites, elec trification of processes, and energy efficiency. Offsetting through nature-based solutions remains a long-term option, but at the lowest level in Kemira’s mitigation hierarchy. For scope 3 emis

sions, Kemira is committed to working with suppliers to decrease the carbon footprint of purchased goods and services.

ABB has launched its newest automated data acquisition and laboratory reporting solution, offering pulp and paper manufac turers rapid analysis of laboratory quality information, with re liable data storage, management and reporting. Purpose-built for paper testing laboratories, the scalable, web-based L&W Lab Management System replaces ABB and other legacy systems, halves procedure times, and tailors laboratory reporting to users’ specific workflow preferences.

Renaissance Chemicals Ltd is supporting AgriFoodX Ltd, by giving access to their laboratory facilities and technical ex pertise. AgriFood X was established to recover high value chem icals from agri-food by-products (AFBPs) for functional food and therapeutic applications, as well as materials for biodegrad able packaging. For certain food and agricultural applications, bioplastics derived from AFBPs offer a more sustainable alter native than non-biodegradable oil-based plastics. Supported by the EIT Food Programme and ERDF FoRTaMP project, Agri FoodX is developing novel bio-based films and scalable produc tion methods. With the aid of Renaissance Chemicals, they hope to accelerate translation from laboratory to production.

ABB has launched a new range of color-coded sensors that makes it easy to choose and manage the optimal pH measure ment solution. The application driven designs are categorised into three groups: the entry-level 100 series for cost-effective measurement in general process applications; the high-perfor mance 500 series for harsh industrial applications; and the 700 series for specialist applications.

The renewed Valmet IQ Quality Management System utilises Valmet’s latest innovations and expertise on pulp and paper qual ity management. It integrates the quality management of the en tire production process and is a step towards an autonomous mill. Valmet IQ consists of all the devices and applications needed to monitor and optimise both process performance and end-product quality: scanners, measurements, profilers, machine vision, and quality control applications. The new quality scanner family is redesigned for even more demanding production environments. All Valmet IQ scanners now consist of stainless-steel exterior, enhanced diagnostics, and a new flexible sensor platform. New IQ Dryness and IQ Multipoint measurements reveal the true dry ness development from the headbox to the reel. The IQ family is completed by the most advanced machine vision system on the market, enabling faster detection of even smaller quality de fects. The renewed Valmet IQ is compatible with the previous generations.

ABB announced its enhanced L&W Autoline automated paper testing system, scalable to fit any laboratory and userfriendly in operation for those new to automated testing. The fast, accurate solution optimises quality control and minimises oper ational costs for all papermaking operations. Building on the legacy of almost 50 years of automatic paper testing, L&W Au toline now comes in two different sizes: L&W Autoline S has a reduced footprint for smaller mills and those new to automated testing. L&W Autoline L is a larger unit, designed for more ex tensive testing requirements.

Finally, PITA welcomes its latest Corporate Member: Carbon Force. The company provides a fully funded, turnkey energy and carbon reduction solution. They build energy centres, powered by renewable energy sources, that replace old fossil fuel powered energy systems. Their turnkey solution includes: Survey, design, procurement, installation, commission and long term mainte nance, all on a fully managed basis. See the PITA website for more information.

News Bytes

work was handled remotely in order to avoid any health and safety risks.

Workers at the Burgo Duino paper mill in Italy walked out on a one-day strike to call attention to the working conditions at the site, after three workers had been in jured the day before – they were working on a platform which collapsed.

Seven workers fell ill, three of them seriously, after inhaling poisonous gas at Shakti Paper Mill in Tetla village, India, following attempts to restart production after the COVID-lockdown.

An explosion occurred at the Verso Corporation paper mill in Jay, Maine, in the pressure digester of the pulp mill; there were no casualties. Also, an accident occurred at the company’s Wisconsin Rapids paper mill, resulting in the death of a contractor.

Waste management company Viridor has been prosecuted and fined following an incident when an employee was crushed by a reversing 22.5 tonne shovel loader driven by an on-site contractor at their Crayford Materials Recycling Facil ity. He suffered very serious internal in juries and multiple serious fractures, both with significant life changing effects.

Recent fires included: Chadha Paper Mill, India, blamed on a short circuit; Es sity Lilla Edet mill, Sweden, on one tissue machine; International Paper, Coosa Mill, Georgia, which caused extensive damage; Mayr-Melnhof paper mill in Hirschwang an der Rax, Austria, blamed on arson by a man on the night shift; Sappi Alfeld paper mill, Germany, PM3; Twin Rivers Paper Company mill in Plaster Rock, USA, contained to chip and bark piles; VPK Oudegem Mill, Belgium, in the waste paper warehouse.

EUROPE - EASTERN

AR Packaging Group is to purchase BSC Drukarnia Opakowań, a Polish cartonboard packaging producer, which will strengthen the strategic position of ARP in Central and Eastern Europe.

FP Kaczory paper mill, located in Poland, took delivery of a steel Yankee supplied by PMP; PM2 is now up and running.

JSC Volga Pulp and Paper Mill in Bal akhna, Russia, engaged Andritz to re build their existing groundwood reject line as a TMP line. Furthermore, due to the corona crisis, the complete start-up

Vajda Papír, Hungary, has been in full operating mode for a few months now, after Andritz installed a new tissue ma chine (capacity 35ktpy).

EUROPE - WESTERN

Following the failure of plans to reopen the Arjowiggins Bessé-sur-Braye coated paper mill in France, the mill, which has stood idle since spring 2019, along with all the machinery, was put up for auction in May.

Baden Board and Baden Packaging, a German recycled board and packaging producer, has ended self-administered in solvency protection proceedings.

The European Commission has re jected a request by the Hansol group to exempt phenol-free thermal paper from the scope of products covered by antidumping measures. The EC has therefore instituted definitive anti-dumping duties on imports of certain lightweight thermal paper from the Republic of South Korea.

Hamburger’s new CCM machine at the Spremberg mill in Germany will start up later than planned; impacts of COVID19 and a recent fire have led to the delay. PM2 is now slated to start in early September.

Iggesund Paperboard’s mill in Work ington, UK, did not have a single accident that led to absence during the whole of 2019; more than 320 people work there.

Klingele Paper and Packaging Group, an independent manufacturer of corrugated base paper and corrugated cardboard packaging based in Germany, has commemorated its centenary this year.

The Koehler Paper Group has joined the 4evergreen alliance, a forum created by CEPI with the aim of increasing the role played by fibre-based packaging in achiev ing a sustainable circular economy.

Papier- und Kartonfabrik Varel PM4 has restarted after a rebuild which raised production capacity for the Jade White Classic and Jade Kraft container board grades by 20% to 360ktpy.

Pro-Gest plans to start the Mantua re cycled containerboard mill, capacity 400ktpy, in September.

Reno De Medici had the Jagenberg sheeter at their Santa Giustina, Italy, re built by Sael.

Sappi announced that its Symbio biocomposite cellulose fibre has been chosen as feedstock for the development of lightweight bio-composite materials, for the Life Biobcompo project. The project aims to reduce vehicle CO2 emissions by 8% through the replacement of conven tional mineral fillers with bio-based fi bres, promoting the use of more sustainable resources and demonstrating these technologies at industrial scale.

Stora Enso and Cordenka GmbH & Co KG have signed a joint agreement to develop precursors for bio-based carbon fibre. The precursor development is car ried out with specialised manufacturing spinning equipment at Cordenka’s Obern burg production site in Germany.

UPM has created a unique concept for release liner recycling, by which they are de-siliconised and used to produce new high-quality release liner base papers. This process will be used on their refur bished PM2 at Nordland, Germany, which is being converted to make a range of fine and speciality paper grades.

WEPA Giershagen has been operating PM19, supplied by Toscotec, since 2015. Recently it has been upgraded with a dou ble press, which has allowed the machine to run faster, enabling it to achieve the steady speed of 2200m/min, a new world record.

NORDIC REGION

Ahlstrom-Munksjö and Metsä Fibre continue their collaboration by focusing on responsible wood sourcing.

AR Packaging aims to be first on the market with dry moulded fibre trays and cutlery. In line with this strategy the group has joined the PulPac Technology Pool. The process, invented by PulPac in 2016, which dry-moulds pulp into solid packag ing and single-use products, is unique and differs from the traditional methods of moulding cellulose and offers a replace ment for single-use plastics at a lower price than previously possible. The project is funded by the European Regional De velopment Fund, VTT and companies.

Many brands and retailers could re duce the climate impact of their packag ing up to 50% and avoid thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide being emitted to air, according to results based on a large number of life cycle assessments per formed by BillerudKorsnäs using a new

tool that evaluates the environmental im pact of different packaging solutions. The recently introduced digital tool contains an extensive database on different pack aging materials, including data from BillerudKorsnäs’ own production. By se lecting a limited number of parameters re lated to the packaging, such as material, size, production location, transport, and disposal method, it will show the total life cycle impact for carbon dioxide emissions and water consumption.

Lessebo Paper launched Lessebo Re cycled in 2019, an uncoated range of pa pers produced from sorted waste, sourced from Europe. This innovative product made with recycled content is now FSC® certified.

Metsa Board is one of the founding members of the recently established Eu ropean Paper Packaging Alliance. EPPA is a food and food service packaging as sociation whose aim is to promote food safety, circular solutions, and lower car bon emissions as well as call for evi dence-based policy making.

Oppboga Bruk AB, a supplier of multi-ply paperboard for signs, displays and packaging, announced that they had started supplying their FSC-certified prod uct Oppboga Resilient™ for use in the manufacture of face shields to provide ad ditional protection to front line staff in hospitals and care homes in the UK. The face shields are produced by the Swanline Group, a principal merchant of fibrebased materials, print and conversion ser vices to the packaging and POS sectors.

Paper Province, a business cluster within the forest bio-economy in Sweden, has been working on transformation of lignin to enhance properties such as UV and fire protection.

Södra Cell Mönsterås pulp mill in southeastern Sweden, has started the world’s first biomethanol plant using An dritz A-Recovery+ concept which uses a patented extraction process. In addition to biomethanol production, A-Recovery+ also produces sulphuric acid from odor ous gases and recovers lignin for use in advanced bioproducts.

Stora Enso has begun testing an auto mated truck in its Uimaharju mill area in Joensuu, Finland. The objective is to find out to what extent automated transporta tion using a self-driving vehicle can re duce emissions and improve safety. The maximum speed of the automated vehicle moving between the sawmill and the pulp mill is 20kmh. The truck transports wood chips from the sawmill to the pulp mill, travelling the distance of some 1.4 kilo metres about 15 times a day.

UPM has newly adopted the target of doubling the amount of broadleaved trees growing in company-owned forests in Finland. In the light of current research data, increasing the proportion of broadleaved trees improves the forest’s growth and yield as well as its species di versity and resistance to climate change. UPM plans to increase the proportion of broadleaved trees to one fifth of all tree species growing in habitats that are suit able for birch. The dominant tree species growing in Finnish forests are typically pine and spruce.

NORTH / SOUTH AMERICA

Canfor Corporation announced it will be closing the Isle Pierre sawmill, located near Prince George, British Columbia, Canada, in Q3 2020.

Cascades Inc is to close the Brown Containerboard Packaging facility located in Burlington, Ontario, as part of the Cor poration’s continuing optimisation initia tives for its Containerboard Packaging business.

Domtar Corporation has completed its purchase of the Point of Sale paper business from Appvion Operations, Inc. The business includes the coater and re lated equipment located at the West Car rollton, Ohio, facility as well as a license for all corresponding intellectual property. With this acquisition, Domtar will be come a large-scale, integrated producer of POS paper.

DS Smith has opened its first recy cling facility in the United States. The Reading facility is unique in the region as it is alongside the company’s paper mill and within a mile of its packaging plant, creating a closed loop manufacturing model. Capacity is 36ktpy.

FPC Tissue in Chile has installed a Web Monitoring System on their new 2000mpm, 5.6m tissue machine, supplied by Procemex.

Graphic Packaging announced the planned closure of the White Pigeon, Michigan, coated recycled board mill (70ktpy) and PM1 containerboard ma chine in West Monroe, Louisiana (120ktpy). Both closures will be effective June 30, 2020.

Greif Inc. announced the closure of its La Palma, California, plastics and fibre facility. The fibre drum business will be redirected and serviced from their Morgan Hill, California, location.

Grupo Corporativo Papelera in Mexico started a new tissue production line (capacity 100tpd), supplied by A.Celli Paper.

Hamrick Engineering has success

fully and economically extracted arabino galactan and taxifolin from larch (tama rack) wood chips, and been granted patents for this technique in the countries with the most larch trees – the USA, Canada and Russia. This technique im proves the quality of the pulp, and the ex tracts have been shown to have significant probiotic effects in both people and ani mals, and can aid in producing animal feed without antibiotics that can be la belled as ‘organic’.

International Paper has committed to donating two million corrugated boxes to hunger-relief organisations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, the company is to sell its Brazillian corrugated packag ing business, which includes three con tainerboard mills and four box plants, to Klabin S.A

LD Celulose S.A., a joint venture be tween Lenzing AG and Duratex S.A., is to build one of the largest dissolving wood pulp plants in the world, in Minas Gerais State, Brazil.

New-Indy Containerboard, a 50/50 joint venture between the Kraft Group and Schwarz Partners, has acquired Shoreline Container, a Michigan-based paper and packaging company. With this acquisition, New-Indy will optimise Shoreline’s two manufacturing facilities: one at Holland, Michigan, which pro duces corrugated packaging products, and another at Zeeland, Michigan, which dis tributes protective and specialty packag ing materials.

Northern Pulp Nova Scotia, which is owned by Pulp Excellence Canada, plans to upgrade the pulp mill and has re quested that Nova Scotia Environment issue an Environmental Assessment pro cess for its proposed Effluent Treatment Facility (ETF) modernisation.

Sonoco has approved an $83 million investment to strengthen its uncoated re cycled paperboard (URB) mill system in the United States and Canada. The major ity of the investment includes transform ing its Hartsville, S.C., corrugated medium machine (No.10) into a state-ofthe-art URB machine with annual produc tion capacity of approximately 180ktpy. The machine conversion should be com pleted and on-line by early 2022. As part of the mill system optimisation program, Sonoco will also increase capacity of its Wisconsin Rapids, WI, mill. Finally, the company is permanently closing its No.3 URB paper machine in Hartsville and its Trent Valley, Ontario, Canada paper mill due to market conditions.

Sun Paper, a Chinese company, has abandoned its plan to build a huge paper

mill in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. The com pany cited “continued political friction and economic instability,” and the coronavirus outbreak as reasons for walking away from the project. The $1.8 billion mill was announced in 2016 but has faced uncer tainty since then because of trade tensions.

REST OF WORLD

The Arab Company For Paper Products Ltd. (Arapepco) successfully started PM1 at Khan Al-Asal paper mill, near Aleppo, Syria, after a major rebuild sup plied by Toscotec.

Gulf Paper Manufacturing in Kuwait has restarted PM1, which pro duces packaging (mainly corrugating medium) after Toscotec completed a major rebuild of its dryer section.

Kimberly Clark Products Malaysia, Kluang Johor Mill, employed A.Celli to upgrade the TM2 Tissue Line with a new off-line shaft puller and a new set of ex pandable spools, in combination with the upgrade of the rewinder slitting unit.

Japan’s paper distribution group Kokusai Pulp & Paper Co. Ltd, Se quana SA and Bpifrance have entered into binding agreements for the potential acquisition of Sequana and Bpifrance’s 83.7% in Antalis by KPP. The transac tions are expected to create a world mar ket leader in the distribution of paper, packaging and visual communication in Asia, Europe, Australia and Latin Amer ica (capacity 3.3Mt).

Picknik Marketing Pty Ltd in South Africa started a Toscotec tissue machine at its Johannesburg mill. The new line, ca pacity 75tpd, produced high quality tissue from day one.

Sunshine New Material for Hygiene and Health Care Jiangyin Co. Ltd started two spunlace machines, a winder and a rewinder at their plant in Jiangyin, China, installed by A.Celli.

SUPPLIERS

ABB has introduced the next-generation L&W Autoline; launched its KPM KC9

Optical Consistency Transmitter family; introduced its newest automated data ac quisition and laboratory reporting solu tion; and finally launched a new range of colour-coded pH sensors.

A.Celli has developed the Doctor Rewinder for a fast and effective removal of any defects in nonwoven reels and to obtain small format reels through longi tudinal cutting.

Andritz Diatec has developed a fully automatic, high-speed face mask convert ing line for the production of disposable face masks.

BTG launched CONTROLsuite, its in tuitive, user-friendly and comprehensive solution to optimise loop performance. Also, Pulp 4.0, an integrated solution to improve overall fibreline performance; it can be implemented for the entire fibre line, or by process area – the three process areas are: MACScook, MACSwash and MACSbleach. Finally, the company has continued to implement its new-genera tion Yankee Performance Monitoring sys tem (VigilancePRO).

Clyde Industries, a provider of boiler efficiency solutions, has successfully es tablished a new office, Clyde Industries India Private Limited, located in Bale wadi, Pune, India.

Evonik has launched HYDREX® P, a silica with an optimised particle size dis tribution, high optical efficiency and unique internal structure, aimed as an ex tender to Titanium Dioxide

Spreader roll manufacturer and service provider Finbow has invested in capacity expansion in Pirkkala, Finland, where new workshop area has been opened ded icated to handling spool assemblies of ser viced rolls.

Kadant Inc., reached a milestone in nanotechnology-enhanced composite doctor blades sales. Since the launch a few years ago these blades now represent Kadant’s largest volume composite doctor blade type.

Metso Corporation has demerged its flow control solutions and services busi ness focussed on the oil and gas refining,

pulp, paper and bioproducts industries, chemicals and other process industries; the new company will be known as Neles Corporation

PMP opened a new engineering office in Łódź, Poland, dedicated mainly to sup port its tissue business. The employment target of the new office is 40 engineers.

The new RunEco EP650 Turbo Blower developed by Runtech Systems features an ABB motor, leading to reduced rotor losses and higher load capacity.

By combining SKF and SMT’s techni cal analysis and optimisation capabilities, engineers can now have a seamless expe rience when designing transmission sys tems. The SMT MASTA software helps engineers to accurately and rapidly design and predict performance characteristics.

SKF has released a compact and costeffective vibration and temperature sensor for monitoring the condition of rotating parts on heavy industrial machinery –called the SKF Enlight Collect IMx-1.

Solenis has completed the acquisition of the paper business of ChemSystems Also, Solenis is expanding production at its Ankleshwar facility in India to manu facture its next-generation Pergafast™ 425 colour developer for the thermal paper market.

TietoEVRY is partnering with Turck Vilant Systems, a leading RFID solutions provider in the pulp and paper industry, to generate more value for data in the logis tics ecosystem. The co-operation includes co-innovation in solution development, technology sharing, as well as sales and marketing.

Valmet introduced a renewed Valmet IQ Quality Management System for pulp, tissue, paper, board, and converting indus tries.

Voith introduced the new TwinDrive double unwind, which ensures a winding capacity that is up to 20% higher com pared to the use of conventional unwind ing systems.

PRESS Page 31.

The Essential Guide to Aqueous Coating of Paper and Board

Centenary:

£25 + postage

of

Machine Productivity by Regulation of Paper

Electrokinetic

M. Wroe

Today’s main goals for the global paper manufactures are to achieve higher efficiencies, improving quality at the same time as lowering production costs. It could be done using state-of-the art paper stock preparation and wet end technologies and better studying and understanding of the processes.

In papermaking we also need to implement the papermakers rule “stable production process is a guarantee of high paper ma chine productivity”.

Since paper stock, in the whole, is a complex colloid system with dispersed and dissolved particles in a liquid, different forces and processes take place. This includes balancing interactions and repulsions following reversible adsorption of particles on fibre surfaces and other furnish components that have, for ex ample, high concentration of non-productive substances, mainly the carriers of anionic charge (“anionic trash”) [1].

There are many publications dedicated to the electrokinetic state of fibre suspensions as well as the effects of different chemical products on several electrokinetic parameters of the paper stock, Z-potential and flow potential or on drainage and retention of fibre, fillers and non-productive substances. The modern pulp and paper mills control the following electrokinetic parameters [2]: Electrokinetic Z-potential as a characteristic of fibre sur face charge with “static” ions, Streaming potential as an evaluation of ion concentration in diffusive layer where the ions move along a so-called “sliding surface” of static ions, Cationic demand of paper stock as a measure of anionic charged particle concentration in the paper stock, Electrical conductivity of stock as a measure of conductive ion concentra tion depending on stock temperature and affecting the potential values, Stock filtrate turbidity characterising colloid particles of different dimen sions in the liquid phase.

A relationship between cationic demand and Z-potential of stock from the headbox of a newsprint paper machine (PM) is shown in Figure 1. The parameters vary so much that it is difficult to speak about PM efficiency. If we consider the total paper production line ef ficiency from woodchips for Thermal Me chanical Pulp (TMP) production to the winder, for paper with higher brightness, brightness losses are 5-6% (Figure 2) due to technological drawbacks in the paper ma

chine system as compared to a reasonable expectation of not more than 2%.

A three-component chemical system included fixing and re tention agents was used previously, which was actually more efficient. We can compare the efficiency of the old system and current one from the relationship between fibre and fines re tention and the Z-potential of stock from the headbox shown in Figure 3. If we proceed from the current 50% retention level Z-potential would have been approximately -19mV, but now it is in the range of -8 and -12mV. Also, a retention level based on the actual cationic demand of the PM headbox stock would have been 57-58% (Figure 4). However, fines, extractives, and chemicals infiltrate into white water due to the drawbacks of the new chemical system and therefore the anionic contaminant concentration rises. That is why the chemicals designated to act as a fixative neutralise anionic charge in the liquid phase more and more which have a negative impact on Z-potential and retention levels. In this case retention agents lose their ef fect. It is therefore necessary to find (a) the right dosages of flocculants and (b) a correct ratio between flocculants and co agulants. It should be noted that although stability of electroki netic parameters are important factors, it does not mean that the whole PM efficiency reaches a maximum. It could be done only in case of the correct process control and application of the best available technologies. But, in this case study, these measures were not used. The technological conditions and chemical systems should be changed with updating of the pro

duction processes. Regulating electrokinetic parameters together with advanced control methods and modern laboratory equipment will contribute to improving PM runnability. This goal was earlier discussed and success fully implemented [1,4,7,8]. In principle it is a matter of adaptability of the chemical technology to specific production conditions that can result in maximum profitability. On the other hand, many offers from different chemical suppliers and distributors without up-to-date servicing tools can create numer ous difficulties for papermakers. They don’t know how to select the optimum technolog ical conditions or chemical systems. More over, laboratory trials can’t simulate a real PM processes; they can only determine the tendencies.

An appropriate choice could be made de pending on surface anionic charge, fibre mor phology variations and presence of non-productive substances in paper stock from virgin pulp or recycled fibre. Only after thoroughly planned multistage experiments on the basis of the following factors can a choice be made:

Preliminary selection of chemicals on the base of current production targets, Primary evaluation of chemical effi ciency in laboratory by measurement of electrokinetic potential, streaming potential, electrical conductivity, cationic demand of stock filtrate, tur bidity of filtrated and non-filtrated samples as well as pulp drainage rate, concentration and dimensions of pitch particles. (The conditions of the mill needs to be simulated, i.e. include the characteristics of original fibre and paper furnish, the time interval be tween chemicals dosage and techno logical processes, stages of stock dilution with recycled or white water before flocculant addition. It allows to detect how the chemicals are ad sorbed onto the fibre surface or on other stock components and/or inter act with non-productive substances [1, 2, 3].)

Determination of the maximum possi ble dosage of cationic chemicals such as polyelectrolytes or PolyDADMAC amounts required to clear up the specifics of adsorption capacities of fi bres relating to polymers with various charge density, chemical structure and molecular weights. This enables plot ting of titration curves to form a true idea of adsorbed and diffused ion lay ers in the fibre field while taking into account real stock conductivity and temperature,

of real fibre charge after its careful washing with deionised water

purities.

Further stages of evaluation include: Balancing of chemical dosages, Laboratory testing of technology with handsheets to evaluate trends, Production trials and technology correction on-line or in the following testing periods.

In contemporary scientific literature there are some articles detailing analysis of Z- and streaming potentials measuring methods. One can conclude that every measuring device has some advantages and disadvantages, but its application always requires highly clean and careful handling. A rather wide database of parameters needs to be collected during a rather long testing period (weeks, months, etc.) to make credible conclusions about the functioning of a highly productive PM.

The authors used “SZP 04” and Mütec’s “PCD 03, PCD 04” devices to determine pulp potentials (mV) and conductivity (µS/cm), cationic demand (mg PolyDADMAC/l) and Dr Lange’s “Dr 2800” and “HACH” for fil trate turbidity measuring (FAU and NTU units, respectively). Furthermore, the param eters were analysed from various sampling points of the stock preparation system and PM headbox to determine the effects and consumption of chemicals that are important to correctly apply the technology and optimi sation of chemicals dosage.

With increasing paper stock’s cationic demand, fixing and neutralising processes of non-productive substances start to play a more considerable role. In the first case it is fixation of the anionic substances onto the fibre allowing it to be removed from the white water circuit together with paper prod ucts (retention); in the second case, its bind ing in liquid phase that not absolutely excludes its further fixation even in a “clean” virgin pulp furnish. Anionic contam inant neutralisation in the stock is illustrated in Figure 5 , where one can see that well-

founded increasing of low molecular poly mer (from polyamine assortment) dosage re duces an absolute value of streaming potential at constant Z-potential of material surface [3].

Successful fixation is guaranteed by ap proximately equal or weaker bonding extent of the fixing agent with non-productive sub stances comparing with fibres.

Streaming potential, mV

Figure

Streaming potential,mV

Figure

Selection principle of fixing chemicals depending on cationic demand of original pulp is shown in Figure 6 [5]. The logarith mic trend of this relationship allows the con clusion that with increasing cationic demand as well as the filtrate turbidity and COD higher than 500 to 600mg, PolyDADMAC/l fixative charge density won’t be the same as compared with lower concentrations of an ionic trash. Also, evidential variety of nonproductive substances hampers fixing chemical effect. As mentioned above, speci ficity of fixing agent selection is stipulated by the fact that if charge density at its dosage point is lower than the required level, neu tralisation of anionic contaminants in liquid phase could occur without its fixation. The results of filtrate titration would be wrong, since cationic titrate PolyDADMAC with charge +6.5µeq/g would balance them. When this chemical dosage increases, it gradually accumulates in the liquid with step-by-step enlargement of anionic impurity particle di mensions (a) before its settlement, and (b) recharging of negatively charged fibre. Note that high level of furnish cationic demand can be from excess or overdosing of chemi cals with anionic charge; for example, an ionic dyes or optical brighteners, dispersants, micro particles of silica and bentonite. Addi tion of micro particles to above mentioned situation led to an imbalance between dosages and charges of cationic component and anionic reagent for formation or the lack of cationic com ponent totally in PM short circulation system. From experience, for such furnish composition very effective balancing method is the application of so called ”Carrier System” technology in cluding combinations with micro particles [5,9]. This technol ogy is successfully being used in tissue production where there can be a need for some wet strength quality. High cationic PVAm-component fully shows wet web properties and in com bination with anionic product effectively improves wet strength resin application with lower dosage without secondary deposits in wet end and fibres re-charging [7]. In high porosity base paper production technology for laminating base paper pro duced from 100% waste paper the “Carrier System” success fully replaced 0.8% of cationic starch with some correction of regime for the whole assortment (Figure 7). Concerning high porosity qualities similar positive results were obtained in sack paper and gypsum board base production. Below is outlined a practical example of liner production where a partner for ben tonite resulted in a homopolymer of polyvinylamine (PVAm) in a system were problems occurred from excess usage of chemi cals with positive charges.

Paper furnishes from unbleached pulp and high yield (semichemical) pulps (NSSC) with high contamination levels are spe cific for chemical application because of very poor degree of

cationic demand

mg PolyDADMAC/l

mg PolyDADMAC/l

demand

pulp washing. In laboratory tests with PolyDADMAC an abso lute value of streaming potential firstly grows as anionic sub stances are neutralised. But then the titration curve takes the usual form (Figure 8) as in the case of recycled fibre furnish with medium cationic demand (Figure 9). Addition of a fixative to gether with a retention agent does not alter the curve character on the whole. It can be assumed that the adsorbed layer of static ions and diffused layer are rather thick and the well-known Helmholtz-Smoluchowski equation becomes not completely ap plicable to calculate the potentials. In this case the most nega tively charged ions displace nearer to adsorbed layer and the Z-potential absolute value is higher than that of real fibre. Com bined application of chemicals for neutralising of such kind of substances as aluminium sulphate or polyaluminiumchloride (PAC) together with low molecular, highly cationic fixing agent and low cationic, low molecular weight flocculant, could be ef fective in practice.

The following principles should be considered, to maintain PM efficiency and runnability [2]:

Preliminary stock treatment with fixing agent specifically adjusted for given production conditions and deposit control, Application of adapted retention and filler system, sizing and strengthening agents, providing stable formation and drainage conditions, electrokinetic parameters of paper stock before web forming,

Providing an increase in web dryness after sheet forma tion and improved wet web strength of the sheet before the drying section.

Selection of chemical dosage point, taking into account the specificity of technological line, Providing chemical compatibility and synergy of their ef fects.

In the case study presented below all above principles were ob served that resulted in an improvement of the PM runnability (the whole efficiency, material and time saving, improved quality).

A new range of environmentally friendly polymers based on vinylamine was originally presented as a class of universal chem icals that integrate fixing properties, strengthening of web in PM wet end as well as the final product, retention and drainage agents for fibre suspensions, and strength improvement of paper and board in dry conditions as well as under moisturising. Pa permakers are often sceptical about chemical universality. How ever, in this case, taking into account the specifics of a liner PM with 1000t/d capacity, carefully selected dosage points and se lecting the correct strategy of new chemical implementation, suc cessfully helped to reveal PVAm-product advantages. Laboratory tests of three polymers from this product range with different charge densities enabled choice of a suitable product for liner production. The handsheets for laboratory tests were made using a “Rapid Köthen” sheet forming apparatus. In Table 1 average test results (as percentage change) are presented.

No. PVAmamphoteric PVAm - low cationic charge PVAm - medium cationic

1 Burst, % + 11.0 + 15.0 + 20.0

2 Tensile, % + 4.0 + 9.0 + 9.0

3 Double folding test, % + 32.0 + 18.0 + 3.0

4 SCT, % + 2.0 + 14.0 + 10.0

1. Strength property changes of liner using three different PVAm’s.

The conclusion about an illogical, unsystematic chemical ap plication approach appeared from discussing the current liner tech nology which used seven chemicals and nine dosage points (Figure 10). Originally, unbleached hardwood pulp was treated

with highly cationic PAC and polyamine (PAm), followed by cationic starch and additional dosage of polyamine was then in troduced into the kraft pulp suspension. After the adsorption of PAC particles and with increased consumption of polyamine, the molecules remained on fibres mainly in liquid phase, where they neutralise agglomerating anionic contaminants. In this case there was no expected incremental effect of starch retention on the fibres since low molecular polymer cationic particles have already ad sorbed on active zones of the fibre surface. Sizing agent was in troduced a little later, practically in low consistency pulp, along with a portion of PAC, probably to help with sizing agent retention. Also, biocides were introduced before stock discharge onto the wire, to avoid pitch problems. Finally, before the headbox, ben tonite was dosed that did not have any chemical partner to provide proper formation with the use of a cationic polyacrylamide or at least with a starch. On the contrary, worsening of drainage oc curred in the wire part with increased bentonite consumption.

It should be noted that bentonites are the general term for a large mineral class based on montmorillonite, a composite with crystal and non-crystalline structure. At dissolution in water pos itively charged metal ions such as Al3+, Mg2+, Si4+, Na+, Fe3+ due to its insufficient quantity inside crystal structure of product dif fuse to the liquid phase. So, mineral particles with dimensions about 300nm but thickness less than 1nm get a significantly neg ative charge. Metal ions become available to react with anionic impurities in the liquid phase that result in secondary pitch trou ble in the wet end as well as in the drying section. If bentonite is used alone, without a cationic partner, stock dispersing could take place that leads to the detriment of fixing-retention pro cesses. The same situation could happen with the use of silica sols in the known two-component combinations; a balance in the system is hardly achieved even at minimum concentration of non-productive substances, taking into account the high speed of modern PMs. The references to the results of intensive drainage have not been confirmed, since optimal drainage is a complicated target including a complex of processes such as fibre and filler retention, web formation, etc.

Coming back to our practice, it seems to be that fibre surface saturation with cationic chemicals before final dilution pro vides favourable conditions for effective retention of sizing agent for internal sizing at electrokinetic potential in the range between -2.3 and -7.8mV. However, the variations of cationic starch retention led to the variations of sizing agent retention rates, to secondary deposits and unrea sonable biocide application. Moreover, excess of 0.2% to 0.4% PAC intensified fibre surface charge neutralisation up to Z-potential value of the stock from the PM headbox between -1.5 to -3.8mV, even after bentonite suspension addi tion. This example disproves the postu lates of early electrokinetic theory which stated that the best formation con ditions can be reached at Z-potential values coming to 0 or a little higher, up to + 5mV. PAC, PAm and 1.2% cationic starch were totally excluded from the filler ply pulp loop in the modernised technology with 0.35% to 0.40% PVAm. PAC was also eliminated from the short circulation system, and 0.12% of the PVAm quantity was dosed before the screens. Thus, bentonite received its “long-expected” partner with protection against anionic trash particles and reten

tion-drainage properties with fibre micro flocculation. As a re sult of the balance the new combination drainage improved with increased PM speed (Figure 11). The bentonite consumption was reduced by 27% and the internal sizing agent by 9-10%. With a decrease in the initial concentration of anionic trash, the PVAm main role shifted to strengthening of paper web structure

that enabled the complete exclusion of starch and resulted in the formation of smaller pulp flocs and improved formation.

Finally, the technological flow sheet has been significantly simplified with increased anionicity of furnish and purity level of PM white water circuit (Figure 12). Cationic de mand of non-filtered pulp sample from the PM headbox rose which indicated that high amount of residual chemicals such as PAm and cationic starch fragments in the liquid phase was due to the current production tech nology. Simultaneously, the simplification of this chemical system easily allows adjustable control of further issues relating to produc tion. No pitch problem, easy regulation of re tention and drainage in parallel with strengthening. Table 2 indicates, besides chemical savings, other advantages of the new technology, which in part stem from im proved sheet formation.

As a general conclusion we can say that using modern laboratory equipment together with advanced anal ysis, the correct interpretation and management of electrokinetic parameters of a furnish will help to improve chemical selection and total technology, which in time improve PM’s productivity for various paper grades.

References

W.E.Scott, Principles of Wet End Chemistry, Atlanta, TAPPI Press, 1996, 185pp.

P.V. Osipov, T.A. von Vadkerthy & D. Mönch, “Optimization of paper and board production by means fixation and retention additives application”, SPb, 1996, 4th ISTC “PAP-FOR-1996”, pp.115-130.

P.V. Osipov & D. Mönch, “Memories about future: electrokinetic potential of paper furnishes”, Pulp. Paper. Board, 2001, No.34, pp.16-20.

P.V. Osipov & S.P. Osipov, “Evaluation of drainage, effective ness of polymeric additives in wet end of paper machines”, Pulp. Paper. Board, 2007, No.2 (Part 1), pp.62-68. P.V. Osipov, “Effective use of chemical auxiliary substances in paper and board production”, DSc (Tech) dissertation, SPb., SPbSTUPP, 2007, 295pp.

P.V. Osipov & V.V. Sokolov, “Colloid – chemical aspects of solve pitch problems and improvement of paper machine pro ductivity”, Pulp. Paper. Board, 2011, No.8, pp.74-78. P.V. Osipov, “Improvement of paper production with wet strength properties”, Pulp. Paper. Board, 2012, No.7, pp.56-59. P.V. Osipov, “Modern chemical nanotechnologies for high speed paper machines. Pulp. Paper. Board, 2013, No.10, pp.64-72. P.V. Osipov. “Modern chemical technology in test-liner and flut ing production productivity improvement”, Pulp. Paper. Board, 2012, No.8, pp.84-88.

A. Esser, M. Rübenacker, N. Schall, R. Haffke & O. Truppner, “Synthetic dry strength agents on a polyvinylamine basis”, International Paper World, 2005, No.10, pp.25-28.

How to Effectively Judge Press Felt Trials: Assessing and Improving Paper Machine Clothing Performance

Marcel F. Lensvelt, Founder and CEO of Feltest Equipment BV

Many papermakers have a love-hate relationship with their Paper Machine Clothing (PMC), and their press felts in partic ular. This paper aims to give you the insights you need as a pa permaker to judge press felt trials effectively, so that you can increase the machines bottom-line through better performing felts.

Press felts are probably the mechanical components that change the most over the course of their life in the machine, typ ically a number of weeks. By connecting output data of the ma chine with the life of each felt – and the changing felt properties per day – new insights are gained.

These insights, presented as fact-based charts, give both the papermaker and the felt supplier an objective reference to judge the performance of trials, making the process to better press felts faster and more worthwhile.

Introduction

Many papermakers have a love-hate relationship with their Paper Machine Clothing (PMC), and their press felts in particu lar. But what makes optimising the performance of press felts a ‘special class’ challenge?

A combination of many factors.

First of all, the complexity of press felts as a product. The de signer has to make a selection from several base designs, choose the numbers of batt layers with the appropriate fineness’s. To needle the batt on the base, the designer must choose the best of many different needling procedures and different types of nee dles. After needling, several finishing procedures can be com bined to create the best result. All-in-all the felt designer has to make decisions from roughly a hundred million theoretical vari ants.

Another factor is the significant change that press felt prop erties undergo over the course of their few weeks of life. We be lieve that the press felt is probably the single most changing mechanical component in a running paper machine with already thousands of variables. That makes press felts what we call a true variable!

What can a paper maker do to improve press felt performance?

You will discover that dealing with the assessment and improve ment of press felts is a real science … but it’s not rocket science.

Knowledge is power | Take control

Step one in successfully improving the performance of your press felts is understanding how your current felts change over the course of their lifetime. And how these changes affect (the output of) your total machine.

This understanding comes from monitoring the felt properties on a daily basis, and this is not a task you can delegate to your PMC supplier. A papermaker can only create a consistent basis for judging his current and future press felts when the paper maker himself takes control of his best interest.

And it is in a papermaker’s best interest to know his own ma chine better than anyone else.

Plan for structural improvement

I like to stress the importance of doing measurements at reg ular intervals for establishing a culture of structural improve ment. Later on you will learn about which data to monitor and how to support your suppliers to come with continuously better felts and fabrics for your machine.

Example 1: Pickup felt

The pickup felts of supplier A are connected to a 1% higher production output per day, compared to supplier B. Because of the complexity of the machine, you cannot make 100% conclu sive statements based on these data, but you do need to record this information as an important signal of the relation between pickup felt A and the overall performance of your paper machine.

Example 2: Felt cleaning agents

If you measure and record chemical use as a variable, you may notice that the consumption of felt cleaning agents for felts supplied by supplier B is 5% lower per ton output.

As you see in both examples, the differences in measured variables can be small, but if you add all differences they can re sult in significant production gains or losses. And because the variations are small, it is important to use accurate data, either from your machine control systems or high precision measuring instruments.

We recommend collecting data for a minimum of 12 months to determine how the performance of your felt relates to the per formance of your machine.

You are in this for the long haul, so after these 12 months you can start reaping the benefits by working on improving the per formance of your PMC by basing your decisions on fact-based information, instead of supplier based benchmarks or your own gut feeling.

Picture yourself monitoring one of the relevant variables for a felt (for instance: compaction). Unless there is a huge deviation from the benchmark values, you can’t possibly know if the com paction value you measure is of positive or negative influence on the overall performance. You need more information.

What data to collect

To get a clear picture of the performance of each of your felts we suggest to collect two types of data: machine data and felt data.

Machine data

Machine data covers the output of the machine and factors that affect the cost price of your product. We look for machine data that can be measured per day or per tonne. The aim of col lecting machine data is to show how the performance of your press section relates to the overall performance (output) of your machine.

Examples of relevant machine data: Production in tonne/day Felt washing chemicals in kg/tonne

Number of breaks per day (better than “time lost due to breaks”)

Steam consumption in the pre-dryer section in tonne/tonne

Power consumption in kWh/day for the press section’s vacuum pump

Of course there is much more. Important to realise is that we choose to focus on data that is measured per day or per tonne, because it allows us to start comparing the machine performance per day with the life of each individual piece of Paper Machine Clothing.

Although you can’t allocate the general output data point to a specific part of the paper machine, this data does provide a signal about how the individual parts of the complex system work together.

Normally all the machine output data is already recorded and saved in the paper machine’s control system. Extracting relevant machine data should not be a problem for mills with a qualified IT staff. The trick is to organise the data in such a way that it can be used easily for comparison with data from the felts that are running in the machine.

Felt data

The second type of data we need is the felt data. When we monitor how felt properties change over time, we get signals on how these properties influence the total machine performance, which is directly related to the bottom line results.

If we want to structurally improve the performance of press felts, we have to take into account that felts have a very wide range of properties. The difference between felt weights for one position can be up to 50% (e.g. a 1200 - 1800g/m2 range). There fore it is better to monitor “relative data” than “absolute data”.

Example 1 Felt Data: Compaction Curves

A papermaker monitors the felt caliper and measures a value of 1.66mm. This measured value in itself doesn’t provide much useful information (which is the case for any stand-alone mea surements that are within the benchmark value range). So we need to put the measured caliper value into perspective by knowing if the felt weight is for example 1200g/m2 or 1800g/m2. Calculating the compaction percentage is the solution to this challenge.

Figure 1: Wet press felt showing volume of water and volume of felt material.

When the felt goes into the nip it will be compressed and at the nip exit it will expand back. During the lifetime of the felt, this expansion will decrease and the felt becomes compacted. Compacted felts absorb less water than non-compacted felts. Therefore the caliper of the felt should be judged in conjunction with the felt weight.

Figure 1 is a simplified picture of 1m2 of running press felt. Normally, felt material and water are distributed over the full volume, but for easy understanding all the felt material is pro jected on the bottom and all the water is projected on top.

h = measured caliper (height) of the wet felt [mm] s = solid (non-absorbing) part of the felt [mm] v = void (absorbing) part of the felt [mm]

The “solid” part of the felt can be calculated, as we know the density of the felt material (being PA) and the surface (being 1m2).

F = actual weight of 1m2 felt [g/m2] ρ = density of press felt (approx. 1.14 for PA) [g/cm3]

This makes s = F * 103

1.14 * 106

Now the compaction of a felt can be defined as percentage of the solid felt part in the total measured height, or in a formula:

COMPACTION [%] = s h * 100%

This formula is easier to calculate (if you work in the metric system) when you use the adjusted formula:

COMPACTION = F [%] or in words:

11.4 * h

Compaction is felt weight F (in g/m2) divided by 11.4 times the measured caliper h (in mm).

Figure 2 shows an example of compaction curves for a nip dewatering machine.

Example 2 Felt Data: Permeability

Another important and well known parameter is the felt per meability. A good and affordable indicator for felt permeability is the metric for airflow through the felt at the Uhle boxes.

However, the airflow is not only determined by the perme ability of the felt. The applied vacuum plays a major role. There fore, it is smart practice to convert the measured airflow value to a standardised vacuum level.

For instance, if you measure an airflow of 8m/s over the Uhle box with an applied vacuum of 40kPa, you can standardise by anticipating the value of the airflow at a vacuum level of 10kPa. This is the Dynamic Felt Permeability (DFP). In this example the DFP is 2m/s @ 10kPa.

“NEVER forget that your press felts do not perform in a laboratory environment or at somebody else’s mill. They perform in YOUR machine” Marcel Lensvelt

high speed machines

A directive for judging press felt performance

Collect both machine and the felt data, on a daily basis.

Table 1 shows an example set of data for the felt life of every position in the paper machine.

For each PMC we know the installation dates and removal dates. This knowledge allows us to connect the running days of each felt with the output performance data you collected earlier.

Make charts for every press position. On the X axis the day’s life, starting at 1 until as long as you have data. On the Y axis you put your machine and felt data. Take the average of all daily productions when felt 1 was 1 day old, then when it was 2 days old, etc.

After some time you get the insight into how specific cloths influence the overall performance of the entire paper machine.

The longer the period, the better the quality of your chart. It is best practice to use the collected data/averages for a period of at least 12 up to 24 or 36 months as a rolling average. By using such a long period, your averages will be statistically reliable without being influenced by totally different machine setups or other ghosts of the past.

The first and third press felt have a life of four weeks, but they are never installed at the same time.

The number of daily breaks (the red bars in the chart) seems somewhat correlated to the steam consumption, the green line in the chart. The blue line shows the daily production. It is clear to see that after a shutdown the machine does not immediately get to maximum output. Just before a shutdown, daily output drops a bit and the number of breaks go up.

When you watch closely, you will see that at the end of the first cycle the machine has up to 6 breaks per day. At the end of the second cycle you also have more breaks, but ‘only’ 4 per day.

Now after collecting machine data of several days with “pickup felt life = 1”, “pickup felt life = 2” etc. and combining that with the felt data, we can make a chart for every press felt in the machine as the example in Figure 4.

From this chart can be deducted that only from day 5 the ma chine reaches its maximum output. The first 2-3 days the steam consumption is relatively high, as are the number of breaks. After day 10 the end-of-life becomes noticeable: the steam consump tion goes up – indicating less dewatering by this felt and so does the number of breaks. This could have two possible (feIt related) causes: maybe the felt compaction has a maximum value of approx. 63%, or this position has a critical dynamic felt per meability of approx. 1.7m/s @ 10kPa.

Example charts

In Figure 3 we have made a chart of machine data during seven weeks. This imaginary machine runs in a two week shutdown cycle and with every shutdown a new pickup felt is installed.

Looking at the chart, most can be won by reducing the breakin period of the pickup felt. This should be the target for a new trial felt. It is up to the felt supplier to decide how; he can play with the permeability, the level of pre-compaction, the felt sur face with other batt layers and different needling procedures…

“If you work with true data, your improvements will be real

Marcel Lensvelt

correlation

machine data

as long as the machine achieves more daily output during the first 5 days.

When the trial felt is on the machine, just plot the trial felt’s data into the chart above and the supplier and the papermaker have an excellent baseline to judge the performance of the trial.

Time to Improve

When a papermaker has recorded sufficient and solid “nor mal” performance data for his machine, he can use this valuable information as the reference to work with his PMC supplier in developing new and better performing press felt designs.

In closing this paper … you are invited to open your eyes and actually SEE your felts’ performance.

showing machine data and felt properties over pickup felt life.

make visual charts

show

felt properties change over time and their effects on

total paper machine performance. Visual charts are a pow erful tool for communicating with your PMC suppliers.

Keep things as simple as possible. As a papermaker you’ll want to pick one goal to improve (and ONE goal only, that should be clear from this paper).

your PMC suppliers to develop better felts for you

sharing your data with them. Show PMC suppliers

visual charts

are seriously empowered to im prove and help them kick-start innovative press felt trial processes.

they will SEE that

Nanoparticle-based Antimicrobial Paper as Spread-breaker for Coronavirus

Dr Mahendra Patel, industrypaper@yahoo.co.uk (www.industrypaper.net)

Paper, Packaging and Tissue industries are already indoctri nated with the antibacterial and antimicrobial concepts, produc ing special packaging materials to preserve food and fruits and antibacterial tissue papers. These are mostly based on antimi crobial organic compounds and inorganic materials. In the meantime, lots of advancements have taken place in nanotech nology with production of a number of nano materials which have antibacterial properties. In fact, the antimicrobial efficiency of some of the nanoparticles is many times more than that of tra ditional antimicrobial additives.

For combatting the sub-microscopic bacteria and viruses, an timicrobial paper incorporating nanoparticles, can be very ef fective. It is particularly appropriate at the present juncture to use such papers and products to arrest spread and kill the deadly coronavirus. The key technologies available now in use for pro duction of antimicrobial paper and products, are reviewed, along with test results in reducing the percentage of virus on the an timicrobial paper surface and thus spread of the virus.

Finally, the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on the paper industry has been forecast, and techniques for formulating the nanoparticle-based antimicrobial composite and its addition during paper manufacturing are discussed.

Introduction

We have witnessed the horror of the coronavirus epidemic since the beginning of this year, causing deaths of almost half a million and infection of several millions of people throughout the world. Governments, hospitals, testing laboratories and se curity staff members, doctors and scientists are all playing their roles to arrest infections due to this epidemic. Some industries are also working hard to meet the rapid production and supply of testing and personal protective equipment to combat the spread of the virus. In this challenging time, we are all looking to do everything we can to reduce the spread of infection, to pro tect ourselves and others, and this includes broadening the avail

ability of antimicrobial papers to all sectors.

Writing and printing, packaging, tissue and even newsprint sectors of the paper industry, have roles to play at the present juncture as all these papers are used by society in everyday life: in schools, colleges, offices, hospitals, transport, travel, restau rants, grocery and other goods packaging, face and nose wiping tissue papers and newspapers. The coronavirus may contaminate these papers and spread infection to others. Therefore, all eyes are now on the paper industry to supply paper, packaging and tissue papers, having antimicrobial properties so that bacteria and viruses, when they come into contact with the treated paper, are neutralised and unable to spread.

Paper is such a common commodity and used in such large quantity that developing manufacturing facilities for thousands of tonnes of antibacterial paper per day, can be a really Herculean task. However, in view of this deadly disease, the paper industry will have to pull on the socks to prepare itself in a more chal lenging way. On the other hand, the industries, who will be able to show positive results on antimicrobial properties, will benefit more than ever before and will create history.

Definitions and Concepts

The term bacteria was devised in the 19th century by the Ger man botanist Ferdinand Cohn, and it is based on the Greek word bakterion meaning a small rod. Bacteria are single-celled microorganisms that multiply by simple division, having round, rodlike, spiral or lamentous single-celled (Figure 1) or non-cellular bodies often gathered into colonies (5).

To survive and reproduce, bacteria need energy and this comes in many forms: the most common involves oxidation of organic compounds, but others include photosynthesis, oxidation of inorganic compounds (such as ammonia, nitrite and some metal cations) which is a mode unique to bacteria, and anaerobic respiration, where electron-acceptors include such anions as ni trate and sulphate. As the chemical reactions necessary for pro duction of energy are performed, the bacteria expel waste products, which, for example, in the case of glucose oxidation results in production of ethanol, or for autotrophic bacterial reduction of nitrate results in liberation of nitrogen gas.

The vast majority of bacteria are considered either harm less or positively beneficial to humans, but some are pathogenic and a few cause infectious diseases in humans such as meningitis, typhus and bacterial pneumonia. In other cases it is the chemical expelled that explains why bacteria can be problematic; for example, Clostridium botulinum pro duces botulinum toxin, the most potent toxin known to mankind, while Streptococcus mutans, a component of dental plaque, metabolises sugars and produces acid which attacks tooth enamel.

Worthy of special attention are Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria (or super bugs) which are of major concern (6). The excessive use of antibac terial household cleaners and antibiotics is said to help super bugs survive, because if bacteria are exposed to repeated doses of these products they will mutate genetically, in the course

Figure 1. Photomicrographs of bacteria: (a) spherical Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), (b) rod-like Escherichia coli (both courtesy of NIAID).

of which they acquire resistance.

Turning now to viruses, these are not living entities but are infectious agents that have developed the ability to enter a host and replicate within its cells. A virus consists of genetic material (DNA or RNA strands) packed within a protein shell (or capsid) (Figure 2a); in some cases, an external layer of lipids may also be present (Figure 2b). They are sub-micron in size, so smaller than bacteria, and in general there are three main morphological types: helical, icosahedral, and complex.

Antimicrobial agents are chemicals used to kill or inhibit the growth of micro-organisms whether they are bacteria, viruses or fungi (7). They can be bactericidal, killing the organism concerned, or bacteriostatic, inhibiting the growth of the organisms concerned thereby giving the immune system of the host time to act.

SARS-CoV1, SARS-CoV-2 and Surfaces

Before delving into the depth of antibacterial paper and prod ucts, where they serve as spread-arresters, it is worthwhile un derstanding the difference between SARS-CoV1 (the virus responsible for the SARS outbreak in 2002/3) and SARS-CoV2 (also known as 2019-nCoV), which is the virus responsible for the current COVID-19 outbreak (see Figure 3).

Scientists at NIH (2) compared how the environment affects SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV-1. SARS-CoV-1, like its succes sor, emerged from China, and infected more than 8,000 people in 2002/3; it was eradicated by intensive contact tracing and case isolation measures and no cases have been detected since 2004. SARS-CoV-1 is the human coronavirus most closely related to SARS-CoV-2. In the stability study, the two viruses behaved similarly, which unfortunately fails to explain why COVID-19 has become a much larger outbreak.

The NIH study (2) attempted to mimic virus being deposited from an infected person onto everyday surfaces in a household or hospital setting, such as through coughing or touching objects. The scientists then investigated how long the virus remained in fectious on these surfaces (1-3) and found that viable virus was still detected:

in aerosols for up to 3 hours, up to 4 hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard, and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel.

information about the stability of SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19 disease, and suggests that people may acquire the virus through the air and after touching contaminated objects. So the findings emphasise the importance of hand washing and dis infecting frequently touched surfaces to protect against infection.

The scientists highlighted additional observations from their study (2):

(a) If the viability of the two coronaviruses is similar, why is SARS-CoV-2 resulting in more cases? Emerging evidence suggests that people infected with SARS-CoV-2 might be spreading virus without recognising, or prior to recognis ing, symptoms. This would make disease control mea sures that were effective against SARS-CoV-1 less effective against its successor.

(b) In contrast to SARS-CoV-1, most secondary cases of virus transmission of SARS-CoV-2 appear to be occurring in community settings rather than healthcare settings.

These times will vary under real-world conditions, depending on factors including temperature, humidity, ventilation, and the amount of virus deposited.

Nevertheless, the results provide key

So these findings show that SARS-CoV-2 is actually quite similar to SARS-CoV-1 in terms of stability in the environment. This means we can learn from our experiences with SARS in 2002-2004 to gain insights into infection control, especially in healthcare settings. On the other hand, it indicates that the major differences in the epidemiology of these viruses probably arise from other factors, especially the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to be transmitted by people not exhibiting clear symptoms. These re sults will inform future epidemiologic investigations that will be necessary to understand spread of this virus person to person.

Figure 2. (a) Graphic of a helical virus protected with a capsid or protein shell (courtesy Arionfx); (b) Graphic of a virus protected by a lipid membrane (courtesy NIAID).

Figure 3: SEM Image of Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Courtesy NIAID).

Antimicrobial Paper

Like all other industries and organisations in the world, the pulp and paper industries also never anticipated that coronavirus could be come a world calamity, keeping all activities at a standstill and causing thousands of deaths. While developments by the paper industry on reducing the hospital-induced diseases such as MRSA have been on-going for the last few decades, suddenly a new challenge has ap peared and all focus is now on inventing new products to arrest the spread of coronavirus.

Based on the duration of antibacterial ef fects and the type of agent used in production of paper, it may be classified into two cate gories (see Figure 4):

A) Antibacterial paper with long lasting an tibacterial property, and

B) Antibacterial paper with short duration of antibacterial property.

Obviously, for combatting coronavirus, the first category is much needed, while the second category may be used for common purposes, notably as hand, face and nose wipes. Indeed, the recent developments on Antibacterial grades involve mostly (A) types of papers, based on incorporation of nanoparticles having antimicrobial properties (7). Figure 5 summarises the various antimicrobial spread breakers.

Bacteria and virus are in the micron and submicron sizes and in order to react effectively with these micro-organisms, harbour ing help of nanotechnology, which deals in particle sizes even smaller than these micro-organisms, can serve the objective ef fectively. Moreover, because of the high surface area and an tibacterial properties, the nanoparticles can act as killers for the viruses and the bacteria (7).

The efficacy of Ag-nanoparticles as antibacterial agents, is wellknown and many products based on Ag-nanoparticles have been produced including additive for antimicrobial paper (5, 7-12).

Considering the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, apart from

staying at home, people need other items to halt the spread of this respiratory disease. Various nanotechnology products are available (13) to equip people for combating COVID-19. Even though nanoparticle- or nanofibre-improved respiratory masks and gloves are required to be employed outside to limit the num ber of people exposed to potential risks, soaps, sanitisers, disin fectants, shampoos, and detergents, composed of antiviral and antibacterial nanomaterials, can be used inside to fight against this pandemic. Graphene, nanodiamond, polymer nanofibres (e.g., polyacrylonitrile), and such nanoparticles as silver, titanium dioxide, and copper oxide are commonly incorporated into these categories of products so as to contribute to their proficiency.

The overwhelming demand for nano-enabled or nano-en hanced gowns, aprons, scrubs, and protective gear has set off a race among health centres. Other much-needed goods such as air filtration systems containing high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters play a pivotal role in capturing bacteria, mould spores, and viruses to prevent airborne contam ination in hospitals. Such systems, activated by UV light on the basis of nanostructured ab sorbers, are certified to filter the majority of airborne infectious agents down to 3nm.

A new development is the first-ever molec ular photo catalyst air purifier works which is based on a chemical reaction between the nanoparticles and the pollutants under the pres ence of UV light. Moreover, state-of-the-art systems based on electric filtering remove ultra-fine particles down to 0.3nm, using an electric shock. This ventilation system does not contain filters that can get clogged, therefore the purification efficiency stays high at all times (12).

It is felt that nanotechnology is under utilised in a time of crisis like now (14). It is exigent to review the various research studies undertaken for contributions, likely to be made

by nanotechnology not only to stop spreading of the virus but also in diagnostics and treatment.

i) Addmaster – antibacterial and antiviral treatment

Addmaster (15) in UK is now the major producer and supplier of antibacterial additives for paper as well as textiles, paint and coatings. It is engaged in developing antibacterial additives and testing against MRSA in hospitals and other healthcare settings. In addition it has gained wide experience and expertise on an tiviral products and is now tackling the coronavirus crisis. Nu merous tests on coronaviruses have been made by this Company, particularly the feline strain as it is similar to COVID-19. [See Page 26]

Their Biomaster antimicrobial additives provide long-lasting and effective product protection against harmful bacteria, biofilm, fungi and mould for the lifetime of the end product with out affecting its structural and physical qualities. This is partic ularly important in hygiene critical situations, where every step possible should be taken to reduce cross-contamination, espe cially as studies have shown that bacteria such as MRSA can sur vive on paper for up to 38 weeks.

ii) Antibacterial Printing Technology

Galloways Printers Ltd (16) based in Cheshire is also using Biomaster additives in their print formulations aimed in partic ular at:

Food service industry for order books and menu cards, Education for books and stationery, Travel and leisure sector, for in-flight safety cards, Health care, for patient files.

The company is also looking to protect workstations with pro tective paper coverings of this antibacterial paper so that staff can hot desk safely.

iii) James Cropper Products

The PaperGard grade produced by James Cropper (17) is treated with Biomaster anti-microbial silver ion technology. It is aimed at a wide range of applications, from premium boxes for luxury brands to greetings cards and envelopes. [See Page 27]

iv) American Eagle Products

American Eagle Paper Mills (18) has introduced a new an timicrobial paper line; the Eagle Armour suite of paper products has been designed to reduce the transmission of communicable diseases. Again these have been treated with Biomaster silver ion technology. What is special about Eagle Armour antimicro bial paper is that it inhibits the growth of bacteria without sacri ficing paper performance or appearance, producing paper with 92% brightness from recycled pulp.

v) Nekoosa Coated Products

Nekoosa Coated Products is another American company using Biomaster additives, this time in what the company claims to be the world’s first antimicrobial carbonless paper. According to their website, this technology will not affect the paper’s prop erties such as dry toner/laser compatibility or carbonless image permanence. This product is aimed at any high traffic environ ment such as hospitals, classrooms, exam rooms, offices, clinics and day-care centres which use carbonless forms (19).

vi) Antimicrobial Tissue Paper using Nanocellulose

At NC State’s College of Natural Resources (20), researchers have developed a new tool that can help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases: antimicrobial tissue

paper. It is based upon a hydrophobic spray-coating of chitosan (Ch) and cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) composite. Hand-sheets were prepared, spray-coated with Ch, CNC, and their composite coating (ChCNC), and tested for antimicrobial activity against Gram-negative bacteria Escherichia coli. The highest bacterici dal activity was observed with ChCNC-coated tissue paper, in hibiting up to 98% microbial growth. Plasma treatment further improved the antimicrobial activity of the coatings.

vii) Cascades Disposable Paper Towels

Cascades took a different approach for their Antibacterial paper towels, launched in 2012, which contained micro-encap sulated benzalkonium chloride coated onto the surface. As the user dries their hands, the capsules break, transferring the active agent onto the user’s skin where it kills bacteria (21).

viii) Sofidel Disposable Paper Towels

Sofidel (22), one of the world’s leading manufacturers of tis sue paper for hygienic and domestic use, continues to innovate and diversify its solutions for personal and household hygiene proposing the new Nicky Defend, a disposable tissue paper towel with antibacterial lotion designed for the Consumer market and specifically developed to guarantee proper hygiene.

Generally used in public spaces and workplaces (Away-fromHome), disposable paper towels are now making their entrance into homes, offering a soft, strong and absorbent alternative to fabric towels for drying the hands. Disposable antibacterial tow els are designed to retain the germs and bacteria present on wet hands and prevent them from multiplying, and the special inter folded dispensing system allows the towels to be taken out one at a time, protecting the product against external contamination.

ix) Antiviral Facial Tissues

An antiviral facial tissue (23) is treated with a solution to de activate cold and flu viruses in cough, sneeze, or nasal discharge to prevent spreading of the virus. While these tissues could help with this, there are several real-world-use factors that affect how well they work.

Antiviral three-ply facial tissue has a moisture-activated mid dle layer, which is treated with an anti-viral formula consisting of citric acid and sodium lauryl sulphate (a surfactant found in many soap and cleansing products). According to the manufac turer, when cough or sneeze residue hits the middle layer, the tis sue begins working immediately, killing nearly all cold and flu viruses it captures.

The packaging for Kleenex Anti-Viral tissues notes which germs it has been tested against: it claims that it inactivates 99.9% of rhinoviruses type 1A and 2, influenza A and influenza B, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) within 15 minutes. However, the Kleenex Anti-Viral tissues are not proven to protect against coronaviruses, which cause 10% to 30% of viral upper respiratory infections.

In the patent application made in 1986, Kimberly-Clark ex plained that the antiviral components needed to be placed in a middle layer of the three-ply tissue because they could be irri tating if they came in contact with the skin. The tissues reached the market in 2003, and the packaging was updated in 2009 to note that the tissues would inactivate HIN1 influenza (swine flu).

Antiviral tissues do not deactivate viruses in or on our body, so they do not shorten the course of illness. In theory, they might reduce the chance that the virus is spread to someone else who might come in contact with the discarded tissue. Colds and in fluenza are spread in two main ways. First, by droplets spread through the air when one coughs or sneeze, which can travel as far as six feet. Covering our cough or sneeze helps prevent this

spread, but it will not eliminate it completely. Using a tissue will reduce the spread of germs whether it is an antiviral tissue or not.

Viruses are also spread by droplets settling on surfaces or virus being transferred to surfaces from our hands that are contaminated by our own respiratory secretions. A cold virus can live outside of the body or on a hard surface for three or more hours.

If one uses the tissue and cannot dispose of it immediately, it is possible that the antiviral tissue would deactivate the virus, so the tissue would be less infective to others who would come in contact with it. However, it may be noted that these tissues do not deactivate the viruses on our hands or face, as the sides that touch our skin are not treated with antiviral formula. One still needs to wash the hands well after using the tissue to avoid spreading germs.

Whether or not someone could catch a virus from coming into contact with our used tissue also depends on whether enough time has elapsed since it was used (since they do not work im mediately) and the amount of discharge (too much may over whelm the antiviral agents in the sheet).

Demand for Antiviral Packaging to increase

The coronavirus pandemic continues to rewrite the nature of global society in 2020, and with it the attitudes and behaviours of consumers now and for the foreseeable future. Anxiety around the avoidance of germs and other contaminants is driving de mand for safer products with higher integrity, and so innovation that provides added assurance can help remove barriers to con sumption (24).

Novel coronavirus provides a turbocharged boost to consumer anxiety, but also the potential for innovation, associated with the Sterilised Society trend. Certain categories and packaging types stand to benefit from a wider concern; UHT products in heattreated aseptic packaging can tout their credentials as part of a specialised and sterile production process and final product. Fur thermore, research is ongoing into antibacterial and antiviral polymers and biopolymers for packaging – materials that are en hanced with active drug elements that are efficient and exhibit low toxicity. Demand for such materials in day-to-day consumer products may rise significantly post-COVID-19, as consumers are likely to maintain concerns and habits learnt during this dif ficult period.

Antibacterial Personal Care Wipes market

Antibacterial personal wipes are used for cleaning and disin fecting purposes and often come folded and wrapped for conve nience. They are made of tissue, paper, or nonwoven and contain antibacterial ingredients which are effective at killing 99.9% of harmful germs (25). Most antibacterial personal wipes offer pro tection from a broad range of bacteria and micro-organisms.

Leading companies are focused on offering gentle Antibac terial Personal Care Wipes that biodegrade in 28 days and are made of 100% renewable plant fibres to ensure that no waste is generated that might pollute the environment. Therefore, the de velopment of new and innovative biodegradable Antibacterial Personal Care Wipes is projected to provide a huge growth op portunity for the key players operating in the market during the forecast period.

Based on product types, the antibacterial personal wipes market is segmented into sanitising, skincare, and wound cleaning. The sanitising segment held the largest share of the market in 2019 and is estimated to register the highest CAGR in the market during the forecast period; at a CAGR of 9.3% from 2019 to 2027.

Manufacturing Paper containing Nanoparticle Additives

One of the likely problems, to be faced in the manufacturing

of antibacterial paper in the paper mill is how to incorporate the nanoparticles onto the paper or board. There could be many tech niques for manufacturing of the antibacterial paper. Antibacterial nanoparticles such as Ag (silver), which may be available in ionic form (Ag+) or reduced metallic form (Ago); these being quite costly, one cannot afford to add anywhere and any amount in the manufacturing process.

(i) During stock preparation

It cannot be added at the stage of stock preparation because one cannot ensure that the trace amount of additive will adhere to the paper surface.

(ii) During surface sizing

At the stage of size press, one may add but it has to be exper imented thoroughly; the other safe stage where it can be added, is during coating. So, the first thing to be sorted out is at which stage it is to be added. A metered size press could serve the pur pose appropriately.

(iii) During coating

Addition of the nanoparticle as such alone, cannot result in a uniform and well-coated product so that the resulting papers acts as antibacterial product for whole life period or long period. Metal lic ions having antibacterial and antifungal capabilities, such as silver, copper and zinc, are impregnated in a mineral or blended with a carrier to form the composite for application as a coating.

(a) With regular coating pigments: metal ions can be em bedded in some mineral or coating pigment regularly used in coating, namely calcium carbonate (precipitated or ground), titania, kaolinite clay or often talc mineral.

(b) With other clay minerals: extensive studies were carried out to exchange the metallic ions in the interlayer spaces of clay minerals such as vermiculite (26) and montmoril lonite (27). Attempts may be made to incorporate the silver ions with the regular pigments used in the paper coating, such as kaolinite clay, calcium carbonate and titania (28). Inorganic antibacterial material is usually in the form of a composite. This is considered as highly safe (nonvolatile) and heat-resistant compared to organic materials. Appropriate release of antibacterial metallic ions from the composite can effectively inhibit the birth and growth of harmful microbes. Silver has a broad spectrum of antibac terial activity, while exhibiting low toxicity towards mam malian cells (29).

By impregnating silver or copper ions into the nanome tre openings between the layers of vermiculite, it is possible to render the composite with antibacterial functions if the metal ions can be released gradually from the composite.

The minimum concentration of silver ions to inhibit Escherichia coli is as low as 0.78μg/ml. Silver-loaded in organic antibacterial materials, such as Ag-zeolite, Agglass, Ag-zirconium phosphate, Ag-phosphorite and Ag-TiO2, have been developed. These products generally show high antibacterial activity and low toxicity. How ever, the high reactivity of silver was found to be a prob lem. Examples include the reduction of silver ions to elemental silver, causing the loss of antibacterial ability, and the change to dark colour after ultraviolet irradiation or heating of the composite.

(c) With kaolin: Kaolin has some antibacterial properties and is used to absorb toxins and bacteria like the other clays. New multifunctional materials possessing antibacterial and antifungal properties have been derived from clay

minerals and other inorganic materials by using cation ex change reaction and surface modification (30).

Conclusion

There exists a lot of confusion about the Antimicrobial prod ucts meant for different micro-organisms to reduce proliferation and spread of diseases caused by bacteria and viruses. While there are some products and papers developed for MRSA and even SARS CoV-1, there has only been a beginning made to combat the present coronavirus (SARS CoV-2).

The antibacterial papers can be divided into two categories in terms of the antibacterial additive used; the Ag-nanoparticle based antibacterial additive and the tissue paper, where mostly organic compounds are added.

The Ag-ion based paper has been tested to be working very well, reducing the Feline coronavirus to >95%. Three paper com panies (one in UK and two in USA) have already started pro ducing antimicrobial papers at industrial scale for use in hospitals, packaging, school stationary, restaurants etc.

The other category is the antibacterial tissues, where the an tibacterial additives, which are mostly organic compounds, are applied on the surface. While these tissue papers can serve to re duce bacteria and virus at the time of sneezing or coughing, these cannot reduce the spread of present coronavirus infection; rather caution should be taken in disposing of the used tissues.

Efforts for application of nanotechnology in producing appro priate antibacterial papers, should be intensified as many metallic and oxide nano materials are available. These have been tried ex tensively for producing multitude of materials (6) for use in all domains and it is high time to intensify research to incorporate them for production of efficient antibacterial products. It is pro posed that the antibacterial nanoparticles should be incorporated into the commonly used pigments for coating or in some clay minerals such vermiculite and montmorillonite and the composite product to be added at the stage of surface sizing or coating.

The demand for antibacterial paper and products is likely to in crease in future because of the impact of coronavirus inculcating use of safe and hygienic products with antimicrobial properties.

Acknowledgement

The author likes to thank NIAID (The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, United States Department of Health and Human Services) for the SEM image sent (Figures 1-3) and to Mr. Paul Morris, Founder and CEO Addmaster (UK) Ltd and his team for mailing the informa tion on Biomaster technology. Also to Arionfx for Figure 2a. The author acknowledges thanks to Dr Daven Chamberlain, Editor, PITA for the valuable additions and corrections.

Disclaimer

Much information was collected from the websites or was re ceived from the organisations noted. The author takes no respon sibility for the claims made.

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19. www.nekoosacoated.com/Making-Waves/Biomaster.aspx, 26 June 2020.

20. Andrew Moore, “Antimicrobial Tissue Paper Could Help Fight the Spread of COVID- and Other Infectious Diseases”, College of Natural Resources News, cnr.ncsu.edu, (Tyagi Preeti et al, “High-Strength Antibacterial Chitosan−Cellulose Nanocrystal Composite Tissue Paper”), 30 Mar. 2020.

21. “Innovative Cascades Antibacterial Paper Towel Now Available for Sale Online at Office Depot”, www.csrwire.com, 10 Jan. 2013.

22. Press release, Porcari (Lucca, Italy), www.sofidel.com, 26 May 2020.

23. Kristina Duda and Rochelle Collins,“Are Anti-Viral Tissues Worth Using?”, www.verywellhealth.com, 17 Apr. 2020.

24. The demand for sterile and antiviral packaging amid COVID-19 panic, Packaging Gateaway, 23 Mar. 2020.

25. Asia Pacific Antibacterial Personal Care Wipes Market Forecast to 2027 - COVID-19 Impact and Regional Analysis by Product Types; Distribution Channel; and Country; (Globe Newswire), www.reportlinker.com, New York, 22 June 2020.

26. M. Patel, M. Kermarec and H. Pezerat, “Etude thermique de la vermiculite echangee au nickel”, Compte Rendu Acad. Sci. Paris, 290C, 279-299, 1981.

27. M. Patel, “Reduction of Ni(II) and Cu(II) in montmorillonite with hydrogen”, Clays & Clay Minerals, 30(5), 397-399, 1982.

28. M. Patel and D.K. Tripathy, “Improvement in coating perfor mance with modified talc”, IPPTA J., 8(4), 31-35, 1997.

29. Guoyu Lv et al, “Preparation and antibacterial activity of silver ions substituted hydroxyapatite/ titania”, Mat. Sci. Forum, 510–511, 78–81, 2006.

30. Bowen Li et al, “Antibacterial vermiculite nanomaterial”, J. Ma terials and Material Characterisation & Eng., 1, 61-68, 2002.

Paul Morris, Founder and CEO of Addmaster (www.addmaster.co.uk)

Biomaster Antimicrobial Treatment Range

Howard Weaver, Founder and CEO of Renaissance Chemicals (www.renchem.co.uk)

Addmaster pioneered the modern day use of silver-ion technol ogy and is recognised as the world’s leader in this field. The benefits of silver as a natural antimicrobial, however, have been known since the time of the Pharaohs. Silver has been used for thousands of years to prevent the growth of bacteria without the high toxicity associated with other metals. In ancient Greece, Hippocrates, often called the Father of Medicine, wrote that silver had both healing and anti-disease properties. In the Middle Ages, the wealthy would feed their children using a sil ver spoon to give them protection against disease. American pioneers travelling west kept their water and milk fresher for longer by putting a silver coin in the storage barrels, and early settlers in Australia placed silver forks or spoons into their water tanks in order to keep the water clean. Up until the in troduction of antibiotics in 1938, colloidal silver was used by physicians as a mainstream antibiotic treatment. More recently, NASA used it to purify water on the space shuttle.

How does it work?

When bacteria come into contact with a Biomaster protected surface, the silver ions prevent three key processes:

Silver ions bind to the cell surface; this disrupts the cell wall and prevents cell growth

The silver ions are attached to the thiol groups in the cell enzymes; this prevents the bacterium producing energy

Silver ions interrupt the cell DNA; this prevents DNA replication and new cell formation

What’s the difference between antimicrobial and antibacterial?

An antimicrobial inhibits the growth of harmful micro-organ isms such as bacteria, viruses and moulds. An antibacterial specifically prevents the growth of bacteria.

Is silver ion technology safe?

Yes. It is based on technology recognised for centuries with no harmful effects and is used widely in medical, food and water applications. It is non-toxic, REACH compliant, EN-71 compli ant and non-leaching.

How effective is silver ion technology on paper?

Biomaster antimicrobial technology is primarily effective against bacteria but is also highly effective against supporting viruses on porous surfaces such as textiles and paper. When mi crobes land on an untreated fabric or paper surface they multi ply; but when they land on the surface of a Biomaster protected fabric or paper, the silver ions trapped in the surface prevent microbial growth.

In tests and clinical trials the Biomaster treatment has been proven to reduce the overall level of Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and E.coli bacteria on the paper surface by up to 99.99% using the ISO 20743 testing method to determine antibacterial activity conducted in an independent, internationally recognised laboratory. Efficacy has also been shown against other bacteria including Salmonella, Legionella, Campylobacter and Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE).

In addition, Biomaster antimicrobial technology has been proven effective at reducing the viability of Norovirus on porous surfaces including treated fabrics and papers. In independent lab oratory tests, analysis identified that Biomaster fabric spray ap plied to textiles showed reduced viral levels by 93% in half an hour, and 99% within an hour.

Most recently, the latest testing with Feline Coronavirus, using the ISO 18184 testing method to determine anti-viral ac tivity, shows papers containing Biomaster treatment were proven effective at reducing the viral level by over 95% in only two hours.

Can silver ion technology safeguard against Coronavirus?

Testing against the COVID-19 virus is obviously very diffi cult due to the infectious nature of this virus (and the associated precautions required for handling). Definitive scientific confir mation of activity against this virus will only be available when the strain has been released by the relevant health authorities, and testing conducted. However, unlike many gastrointestinal viruses such as Norovirus which have a tough protein shell called a capsid, viruses such as COVID-19 rely on a protective lipid coating – and the lipid coatings make them relatively vulnerable and easier to inhibit.

There are several methods available to denature the lipid coating:

Alcohol-based products disintegrate the protective lipids. Quaternary ammonium disinfectants, commonly used in healthcare and food-service industries, attack protein and lipid structures, thwarting the pathogen’s typical mode of infection.

Bleach and other potent oxidisers will also break down the essential components of a virus.

These methods are highly effective at removing dangerous pathogens from surfaces, but they only remain effective for up to two hours maximum; any new microbes landing on the surface after that will remain viable. However, Biomaster Product Pro tection is incredibly durable, long lasting and highly active; when added, it is dispersed throughout the entire item and becomes an integral part of the product.

JAMES CROPPER’S PAPERS WITH ANTIMICROBIAL TECHNOLOGY

With hygiene being front-of-mind for government, business leaders and the public alike, James Cropper’s papers with PaperGard antimicrobial technology have been tested against Feline Coronavirus, with favourable results.

Recent studies show Coronaviruses can remain viable on metal, glass, wood, textiles, plastic and paper surfaces from several hours to a number of days. Whilst the viability of Coronaviruses is not strong on paper compared to other surfaces, with in-built anti-microbial product protection the opportunity for cross-contamination is reduced.

James Cropper is expert at applying silver ion technology to paper, with antimicrobial papers having been a part of the product portfolio since 2006. PaperGard offers product protection for the lifetime of the paper, incorporating Biomaster® antimicrobial technology from the UK’s leading additive specialist, Addmaster.

Richard Bracewell, marketing and technical director at James Cropper comments,

“This innovation addresses demand for cleaner surfaces. PaperGard allows paper products exposed to high touch volumes to be protected, without affecting the appearance or performance of the paper itself. The silver ions present within the paper continually work to prevent the growth of the micro-organisms, effectively reducing contamination levels on the surface.”

Whilst PaperGard has been regularly used for the production of medical and healthcare documents this technology can be applied across the portfolio of paper products manufactured by James Cropper, including papers and boards for premium packaging or greetings cards that are subject to a lot of handling.

A letter from India

Dr Mahendra Patel, industrypaper@yahoo.co.uk (www.industrypaper.net)

Paper Mills based on Imported Waste Paper are first hit by Pandemic Coronavirus

Like all other sectors, paper and packaging businesses are badly affected due to the pandemic Coronavirus in India. The lockdown in India was announced all on a sudden on the 25th March 2020 because of fear of spread of Coronavirus in the country without allowing industries to plan production and business. Paper mills having integrated pulp mill, which is the case with the big paper mills, are able to manage to run somehow without stoppage of production.

However, mills dependent on waste papers in particular, are unable to continue their production because of shortage of raw materials, which are mostly imported from USA and Europe. The pandemic is there in these countries also and exporting waste paper has totally stopped in these countries. It is learnt that be cause of the fear of infection of Coronavirus, the waste paper piles have been burnt or land-filled in USA. In fact, the major import of waste paper is from China and soon after, the Corona virus started there, the supply of waste paper, totally stopped from January onwards. The paper was comparatively at a cheaper price than other countries. In any case, the supply of waste paper from abroad, has totally stopped now. When lock down 2.0 was announced, a few paper mills diluted their inven tories to fulfil the demand of essential goods packaging.

In fact, the containers carrying waste paper are detained in the port and the receivers are to face heavy penalties with de murrage charges at the port. It is learnt that the paper companies are staring at a ₹1,000-crore detention and various other charges at ports for not clearing the imported consignments.

The waste paper collection inside the country has also prac tically stopped as trucks are not allowed to move in the lockdown period. All those mills which have the waste paper in their stock, are somehow able to run the mill, but for how long?

The recycled based paper mills are mostly manual and there fore, getting the employees and workers daily at site, is very dif ficult for the management and therefore, the production is bound to be hampered. Moreover, the products are also to remain in the godown as the total supply chain has been stopped in the country due to Coronavirus.

In India, out of the total production, around 70% are based on recycled paper and therefore, the pandemic will have serious ad verse affect on the recycled based paper mills. The waste papers are used mostly for production of kraft (brown) paper and pack aging boxes etc. On the contrary, the demand of packaging boxes has been on the rise because of changes in the supply chain and e-commerce, though it is not as high as in Europe and USA.

After a 30% fall in waste and kraft paper prices last year, it has been hiked 20% gradually since January, even as demand slowed down partially. One thing, which has resulted so far due to the Coronavirus, is the rise in cost of raw material and there fore, the mills are likely to increase their prices further. Some of the smaller mills, might face closure soon if this lockdown con tinues. Undoubtedly, this will cause big unemployment problems and affect the country’s economy.

Let us hope, this pandemic comes to a halt soon all over the world and man lives without fear of Coronavirus and the indus tries run as usual. Does it seem imminent?

Achieving Gas Barrier Properties with Paper Coatings

Christopher Roberts, Director, Versaperm, info@versaperm.com

Introduction

The paper industry has long progressed beyond the basic production of simple papers, and is creatively developing and seeking new applications for this global-warming-friendly material. Coatings enhance the natural benefits of paper and overcome deficiencies (Figure 1). This article concentrates on coatings that affect vapour permeability as these, in turn, control dot gain and, to some extent, paper integrity. I will gloss over coating types designed for brightness, whiteness and sheen etc.

Substrates

The physical surface of paper, as experienced by the coating, can range from something resembling a vine-covered forest floor to a newly laid concrete patio. Different treatments affecting the surface tension, plus inorganic coatings affecting substrate absorbency play a significant role with the water-based coatings. Generally, the smoother and more receptive the surface, the better the barrier for the amount of coating applied. The most destructive feature for coatings is not holes in the surface, but protruding fibres that penetrate the coating and provide a gas path through it. Attention to the surface is often more cost effective than applying a higher coat weight.

Coating Chemistry

Most barrier coating products are water based, utilising polymers manufactured by emulsion polymerisation. This produces much higher molecular weight polymers than can be achieved by normal bulk polymerisation processes. Control of the composition and topology of the resultant microscopic polymer balls is very advanced. These are, effectively, small balls of polymer surrounded by stabilising molecules that keep

the balls in suspension. They may be destabilised during drying to flocculate and fuse the balls to reduce the redissolution of the coating. However, under conditions of re-pulping, it is desirable to break down the coating to reduce the presence of stickies in the pulp. This differentiates water-based coatings from laminated film on paper.

A number of varying gas barrier chemistries are available, but selection will require testing on the actual substrate in production. Generally, polymers that swell in the liquid version of a gas will have poor barrier to the gas. Many polymers in use in the paper industry have high permeability (i.e. low resistance to water vapour) but can provide a cost-effective primer for the barrier coating.

Crystallinity in the polymer generally enhances intrinsic gas barrier properties. This may be further enhanced by the addition of inorganic fillers which may be plate-shaped, to increase the effective path length of the gas molecule during diffusion.

Another useful component is emulsified wax, which flows into gaps in the coating during drying, and also add surface tension modification properties. Again, crystallinity in waxes generally aids barrier properties.

Coating Process

To achieve the potential of the coating, you need to create a continuous layer of dried coating with no pinholes or fibres protruding. This involves:

1. Shear during application, e.g. using blades, wound rod, and reverse rollers. This assists in laying down any fibres, fusing the coating layer and achieving consistent deposition levels and are more economical than floodcoating, but need to be matched to the paper substrate.

Figure 1. Graph showing relative permeability of different polymers to water vapour and oxygen.

2. Two or more layers of coating. The drying of the first coating may have to be partial before overcoating, especially if there is a wax component. Better results are obtained with primers and top coats with chemistries optimised for their roles. A pinhole typically causes gas permeation at a rate at least 100 times greater than a continuous film with good permeation performance.

Calendering

Calendering involves pressing paper between rollers at the end of the papermaking process. It can substantially increase a paper’s resistance to moisture.

Drying

While there are many methods used in the industry for drying, some are better than others. Hot air and IR are good, a combination is better. These should be optimised to achieve a target residual moisture content while fusing the components of the coating without causing micro-bubbles or blisters in the process.

Testing

There are a myriad of combinations of substrates, coatings and application methods. The more demanding the application requirements, the fewer of these will be successful. A Cobb test will quickly show the disasters visually with pinholes and fibres piercing the coating, but past this, the method will depend on the gas permeation requirements.

Common gases tested are:

1. Water Vapour: By far the most commonly requested vapour barrier (Figure 2), transmission rate has traditionally been tested by gravimetric methods where

the coated is sealed to a cup containing desiccant, placed in a humidity chamber and weight gain monitored over time. This allows multiple samples to be measured at a time but typical takes several days, or if the permeability rate is low, weeks. For this reason much faster instrument methods have been developed. A useful standard is ISO 15106. Although designed for plastic films, at least one its methods will be useful for coated papers, depending on the performance level.

2. Oxygen, carbon dioxide, methane: Less frequently requested, permeation of these gases can be measured relatively easily by standardised instrumental methods. One versatile method involves applying a vacuum to one side of the sample and the test gas to the other. Monitoring the rate of degradation of the vacuum gives the permeation rate and is described in ISO15105.

3. Organic solvents or odours: permeability can be measured using a gas chromatograph or mass spectrometer to identify the gas. The sample normally has the test gas on one side with nitrogen sweeping past the other side. The gas diffuses through the sample and is swept, by the nitrogen flow, to the sensor. This method is also described in ISO15105.

Conclusion

In striving to adapt the wonderful substrate of paper, which most people take for granted, applying coatings opens new and commercially valuable markets to the paper manufacturer, con vertor or research and development. The wide range of coatings and substrates provides solutions for almost all appropriate ap plications.

Figure 2. Water Vapour Transmission Rate (WVTR) of various bio-polymers and traditional polymer-based packaging materials.

Intelligent energy management

a way to recover after COVID-19?

The paper industry has a long history of driving down energy consumption. However, the COVID-19 pandemic is causing widespread concern across all sectors of the economy, and the paper, pulp and wood industry is no exception. The lockdown has changed consumer spending patterns, making it more likely for people to stockpile tissue and hygiene products, whereas the demand for other items, such as building materials and office supplies, is uncertain.

Due to fluctuating demand and disruptions to the supply chain caused by social distancing and workforce furloughs, as well as the potential for future changes to fiscal policies as the govern ment facilitates the economic bounce-back, businesses will re quire careful navigation and planning.

PwC has advised paper, pulp and wood businesses to prepare for prolonged recovery, as it is likely that some suppliers and vendors will be facing months of operational and financial dif ficulties.1 To mitigate the impact of supply chain disruptions, ex perts urge businesses to generate savings wherever possible and “to prioritise establishing tactical cash and working-capital framework designed to absorb commercial shocks”.

With energy costs constituting around a third of all paper pro duction costs,2 there has never been a better time for businesses to review their current energy strategy and look for new oppor tunities in the energy markets.

Revenue rescue

“The development of a holistic energy strategy starts with the assets and the potential flexibility in their energy consumption,” says Mark Davis, Managing Director at GridBeyond, a provider of intelligent energy technology for industrial and commercial businesses. “Debarkers, chippers, grinders, refiners and paper

machines have, on average, up to 30% of energy flexibility. To gether with on-site generation such as CHP and battery storage, they are ideally positioned to participate in grid balancing ser vices and benefit the business with an additional revenue stream of up to £100k per MW.”

Flexibility, in the context of energy, is defined as the differ ence between the highest and lowest amount of energy an asset can consume while working as intended without any impact on operational integrity. By identifying the flexibility of equipment and machinery and connecting them to an intelligent energy plat form, such as GridBeyond’s Point platform,3 businesses can par ticipate in energy services like demand response.

Demand response programmes help National Grid to balance supply and demand on the energy network. For example, if the forecast for wind generation is higher than that delivered, and supply cannot meet demand, large energy users are called upon to turn down their consumption. This creates opportunities for energy-intensive paper, pulp and wood businesses, as their flex ibility to turn down at crucial times is financially incentivised. By monetising flexibility through National Grid’s programmes, paper, pulp and wood companies can gain quick access to new, long-term revenue streams in order to protect their bottom line, increase savings and enhance their sustainability credentials.

One of GridBeyond’s UK partners, a global leader in paper and packaging, connected two of its on-site CHP generators to the Point platform to participate in National Grid’s frequency re sponse programmes. Shortly after that, the company started to benefit from average additional monthly revenue in the range of £10k all without any capital expenditure or impact on opera tional processes.

Besides financially beneficial participation in the balancing

services, intelligent energy technology enables businesses to op timise their energy costs through access to smart tariffs and trad ing on the wholesale market. AI and machine learning-powered algorithms enhance efficiencies of on-site load, generation and energy storage, making it possible for businesses to avoid peak charges and to schedule business operations based on the cheap est week-ahead, day-ahead and intra-day energy prices.

“The energy network is evolving towards a decarbonised, de centralised and digitalised system. Paper, pulp and wood mills all rely on critical power to ensure business continuity, and as such will require a deeper understanding of the energy markets, their risks, challenges and opportunities. Active participation in the en ergy markets and forward-thinking strategy have become partic ularly critical now, during the times of economic uncertainty, as energy technologies can help businesses to recover some of the revenues lost due to COVID-19,” explains Mark Davis.

Resilience and operational edge

The development of a holistic energy strategy is not complete without a reliable mechanism to monitor and control real-time performance of each energy-intensive asset.

For instance, dryers in the papermaking process consume as much as 70% of all energy used by the pulp and paper producers, and perform a critical role in the process. This means that any undetected operational malfunction of those assets, may not only generate inefficiencies but also affect the production processes and business continuity if the asset fails or needs to be replaced at short notice. The operational resilience of the businesses can be further enhanced by taking advantage of the benchmarking and alerting power of intelligent energy technology, which iden tifies anomalies in energy consumption to flag potential mainte nance requirements.

Early fault recognition supports predictive maintenance and retro-commissioning processes to prolong assets’ life cycles, re duce risk of operational downtime and increase efficiencies. De loitte estimates that for heavy industry,4 such as paper, pulp and

CEPI: EU and UK need ambitious Free-Trade Agreement

At present, around 8.1MT of pulp, paper for recycling, paper and converted paper products are traded each year between the UK and the EU27, for a value of €7.3Bn. EU27 exports close to 4.1MT of paper, 0.7MT of converted paper products to the UK, as well as 0.4MT of pulp. The UK exports around 1.1MT of paper for recycling, 0.8MT of paper and 0.7MT of converted paper products to the EU27.

Post-Brexit, the EU and the UK will become each other’s biggest trade partners as far as pulp, paper products and paper for recycling are concerned. Many pulp and paper companies have operations on both sides serving markets in the UK and in the EU with integrated supply chains and European teams.

CEPI, the European Association representing the paper indus try, said: The Free-Trade Agreement to be concluded between the EU and the UK should be as ambitious and comprehensive as possible. Enough time should be guaranteed to complete the wide-ranging negotiations. Amongst other things, existing sup ply chains between the EU and the UK must not be disrupted ei ther by new tariffs or by any new non-tariff barriers and costs and delays related to customs procedures and rules governing transport of goods between the UK and EU should be minimised, while effective, thanks to enhanced cooperation.

wood businesses, ‘predictive maintenance can reduce the time required to plan maintenance by 20-50%, increase equipment uptime and availability by 10-20% and reduce overall mainte nance costs by 5-10%’, whilst McKinsey Global Institute pre dicts manufacturers’ savings from predictive maintenance could reach $630 billion in 2025.

As the world looks towards recovering from the economic and social damage caused by the pandemic, businesses are ex ploring the opportunities for fast access to long-term revenue streams, increased operational efficiencies and enhanced re silience. New technologies, particularly those that support intel ligent energy management, should be integrated into post-COVID-19 recovery plans.

About GridBeyond

GridBeyond has more than a decade of experience working with large energy users in the UK, the US and Ireland. With an in-depth understanding of assets, GridBeyond helps paper, pulp and wood businesses play their part in decarbonising the economy whilst increasing their operational resilience and improving their bottom line through new revenue streams and savings all with out any capital expenditure or impact on operational integrity.

For more information on how GridBeyond can help paper, pulp and wood businesses enhance their sustainability credentials and take advantage of enhanced energy services, https://grid beyond.com/

References

1 https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/covid-19/coronavirus-im pacts-forest-paper-packaging.html

2 https://setis.ec.europa.eu/technologies/energy-intensive-indus tries/energy-efficiency-and-co2-reduction-in-the-pulp-paper-in dustry/info

3 https://gridbeyond.com/our-technology/

4. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/industry-40/using-predictive-technologies-for-asset-maintenance.html

News Bytes Stop Press

BTG has introduced SurfMAX, a development combining novel inline instrumentation and surface metering technology, sup ported by application expertise, to control size press operations.

European Paper Sack Research Group has launched an up date of their food contact guideline.

Feldmuehle GmbH has introduced four one-side coated grades that are marketed as ‘vegan papers’; no animal substances nor GM materials are used.

Fortum and Metsä Group have joined forces with Business Finland to create a 4-year R&D programme, called ExpandFi bre, which aims to develop technologies and concepts that are required to convert straw and wood pulp fibre into novel bio products, such as textile fibres.

Norske Skog plans to convert two newsprint machines (at Golbey, France and Bruck, Austria) into containerboard produc tion; newsprint capacity will be reduced by 360ktpy, and the con versions will introduce 765ktpy of CCM capacity.

Sonoco announced its Tube & Core North America division will implement a tube and core scrap return subscription service.

Voith is expanding the BlueLine stock preparation line with the launch of a new disperger (InfibraDisp) with hydraulic gap adjustment.

People in the news

PITA Corporate Members

Axchem UK welcomed Cathy Hollis as a Senior Account Manager. Cathy has wide experience of the pulp and paper sec tor, having worked for the majority of her career with Eka/Ak zoNobel Pulp and Performance Chemicals, and most recently at James Cropper within the Colourform division.

Bulab Holdings, Inc., the parent com pany of Buckman Laboratories In ternational, Inc., has announced that three new members have been elected by its shareholders to join its Board of Directors: Robert “Bob” Buckman (Memphis), Jacqueline Welch (Wash ington, D.C. Metro) and Gregg Sutherland (Denver). James Shep herd of Vancouver, Canada, retired from the Board after 12 years of loyal service to the Company.

Robert “Bob” Buckman’s career at Buckman spanned nearly 50 years including a previous tenure on the Board. The son of the Company’s founder, Stanley Buckman, Bob has held many positions at the company including CEO (1978-2000), Director and Chairman of the Board.

Jacqueline Welch is the Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO) and Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) at Freddie Mac, and the first CHRO and CDO to sit on the Buckman Board. She has more than 20 years of experience in HR, inclusion and diversity strategy and execution both as a consultant with Accenture and Willis Towers Watson (formerly Towers Perrin) and as a cor porate executive at companies such as Turner Broadcasting Sys tem and Rock-Tenn Company.

Gregg Sutherland is a recently retired strategy consulting partner with the global advisory firm Ernst & Young. During his 17 years with E&Y, Gregg assisted clients with the development of growth strategies and the design of operating models to support those strategies. His consulting work encom passed the chemical industry, including extensive work at Dow Chemical, and pulp and paper companies including Kimberly-Clark and Inter national Paper.

DS Smith Plc announced that Adrian Marsh has informed the Board he will not be joining William Hill PLC. Adrian and the Board have agreed that his prior resignation will be treated as withdrawn and accordingly Adrian will continue as Group Finance Director.

Miles Roberts, Group Chief Executive, commented: “We are pleased that

Adrian will be remaining with DS Smith, providing continuity and stability in this very important time.”

Also, DS Smith Plc announced the ap pointment of Alina Kessel to the Com pany’s Board as a Non-Executive Director. She will also join the Audit, Nomination and Remuneration Com mittees of the Board. Alina is a Global Client Leader at WPP, a leading inter national marketing communications company. Originally from the Ukraine, and a US national, Alina has lived and worked in the UK, US, Australia and Germany, and previously she was CEO of Grey Advertising and, later, of DDB Tribal Group.

CPI announced that Holly Whitbread joined as External Com munications Manager. Holly is a policy and communications professional with extensive political experience at a local and national level. She has previously worked in the Westminster Of fices of several Conservative Members of Parliament and for a Communications Agency based in central London.

Arne Asplund Mechanical Pulping Award for 2020

The 2020 laureate, Bengt Åkerblom, has devoted his entire professional life to developing, constructing and provid ing the pulp market with equipment and solutions for process measurement and control, particularly for the me chanical and chemi-mechanical pulp ing industry. He is the principal owner and Chairman of the Board of the Da metric company, which produces and markets his various inventions.

The way in which Bengt Åkerblom has developed the True Disc Clearance (TDC) and Adjustable Gap Sensor (AGS) for chip and pulp refiners has enabled tremendous improvements to be made in both the availability and control of refiners, thereby increasing pulp quality and reducing specific energy consump tion. These sensors are installed in the vast majority of high-con sistency mechanical pulp refiners around the world. Lately, his work has enabled the development and usage of refining pro cesses based on feeding refiner segments. Such systems, in which the very accurate control of extremely small refiner gaps is fundamental, allow significant specific energy reductions to be made.

The award is endowed every second year by The Arne As plund Mechanical Pulping Award Foundation to promote the de velopment of new technology for the manufacture of high-yield pulp. Presentation of the award was planned for June 9, at the International Mechanical Pulping Conference, IMPC, which is hosted by The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada this year. This event was postponed and the prize will be presented on a later occasion.

Obituaries

William Jackson “Bill” Inman died (14 April) peace fully at Elmsfield Nursing Home, aged 83 years. Bill was brought up in the village of Sedgwick, some three miles north of Milnthorpe, and was educated at Kendal Grammar School. On leaving school in 1953 he responded to an adver tisement by Henry Cooke who was seeking a laboratory assistant. He was successful and joined Cooke immediately, working with them till 1965, al though this period contained a two year spell of National Ser vice in the Royal Army Medical Corp where he trained and worked as a radiographer.

In 1966 he joined the UK Atomic Energy Authority and worked in Chemical Services at their Windscale plant.

Late in 1968 he was approached by the new Management at Henry Cooke seeking his return to Beetham. He made the change and worked for Cooke, or their parent J. Bibby and Sons, up to his retirement in 1996. He was appointed to the Board of Henry Cooke in 1978.

A Charted Chemist and Member of The Royal Society of Chemistry, he was also a keen supporter of PITA, being on their Northern District Committee for several years and serv ing as National Chairman (1993-1995). He sat on a number of PITA, British Paper and Board Industry Federation (BPBIF) and British Standards Institution (BSI) committees and working groups.

Most recently, in 2016 he published Henry Cooke and the Beetham Papermakers 1788 – 1996, a very well re ceived history of his beloved Waterside Mill. As editor of this book I had many conversations with Bill, and a few meals at his house, and always found him to be courteous, knowledgeable, and overall, a real gentleman. He is sur vived by his loving family Shirley (his wife – who is also an excellent cook!), David and Michael (his sons), and Christopher (another good cook), Andrew and Matthew (his grandchildren).

Daven Chamberlain

After a short period with Fospur Ltd, he joined Hickson Performance Specialties in early 1995 as a trainee, with the intention of moving to their Singapore Office, but in Novem ber 1995 HPS was closed. He then transferred to Hickson and Welch Ltd and was given a management trainee role to de velop OBA markets in France, Morocco, Thailand and Israel; however, in December 1996 the paper OBA business went to Clariant and Chris went to Himar to develop their OBA and OBA quencher business. In 2004 he moved to Petrofer, then in 2008 to S&D Chemicals Ltd where he took a senior sales role in paper and textile dyes. With the sale of S&D chemicals to Azelis in 2011, Chris transferred to Dixon Chew (Batley) Ltd where he ran their textile dye business, before his final move, to Axchem UK, in 2016.

Stuart Thomas, General Manager of Axchem UK, notes: “Christian was a gentleman and nobody had a bad word for him; he was so trustworthy and kind. I will always remember him blasting into my old office in Normanton, then announc ing himself and stating he wished to work for Axchem. It was so out of character for him. What I found later was someone hard working without any ripples. He would tackle jobs no body wanted and do them in a very quiet and professional way. He had no hesitation in flying off to a third world coun try like a true explorer, and was happy to meet people, with out prejudices. Christian was intelligent and he will be missed by many people. He left a good mark on myself and will al ways be remembered by me, that’s for sure.”

In his spare time, he enjoyed weekend breaks away, music concerts and was a Huddersfield Town season ticket holder. He leaves behind his wife, Sarah.

Stuart concludes, “I have received many messages from people from around the world; it is tragic that so few were able to pay their respects due to the virus lockdown.”

Stuart Thomas & Howard Weaver

Christian Ziemer (1970 14 April 2020) was born in Bas ingstoke and had over 30 years’ experience in the Paper Industry. After leaving school in 1988, he worked as a labo ratory assistant at Portals for four years, during which time he was sponsored for a degree in Paper Science at UMIST. Suitably qualified, he left in 1993 and worked as Assistant to the Production Manager at Arjo Wiggins Devon Valley, before switching permanently from manufacturing to the supplier side for the remainder of his career.

Donald Attwood (31 March 1930 – 28 May 2020) died shortly after having celebrated his 90th birthday. Whilst not ac tive in recent years, he was a major player in the paper in dustry for his entire working life, occupying senior posi tions firstly at Bowater and then at PIRA in Leatherhead. He was also London District Chairman of PITA, and served a term (1987-1989) as Na tional Chairman.

He is survived by his three children: Simon, Catherine and Peter. He and I were married in 1988 and I feel im mensely privileged to have been close to such a lovely man for so long

Betty Attwood

Paper and Packaging Round-up

Liz Wilks, Director of Sustainability, Europe, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP)

A dealer’s product portfolio nowadays ranges from traditional paper products such as A4 copy paper, to postal packaging prod ucts and even takeaway packaging products such as cups and plates.

Driven by growing consumer demand, businesses are rightly challenging themselves to become more sustainable and are in creasingly looking to ensure that their products meet the con sumer’s expectations which includes environmental credentials. Let’s take a closer look at paper and packaging in this context.

Paper

Ultimately, digitalisation has provided printers with the op portunity to produce increasingly niche, purposed and person alised paper – causing the paper industry to adapt.

One of the main factors that contributes to the rise in demand for paper products is ‘screen fatigue’, as individuals look to break away from intaking information via digital screens. In addition, a whitepaper from the University of Nottingham has shown that using a pen and paper can encourage creativity and boost retention of information because the physical movements involved in writ ing by hand stimulate our brains to a greater degree than typing.1

It’s clear that paper products still play a valuable role in our working lives. However, purchasing these products on behalf of a business has been further complicated by the sustainability de bate. As the climate emergency continues to accelerate, dealers need to align with these expectations and ensure that they are purchasing from a sustainable supply chain.

Some of the key areas to ensure that paper products are sourced responsibly are the European Timber Regulations as well as environmental labels such as FSC or PEFC. Additionally, there are varying degrees of environmental credentials being shared in the supply chain from carbon emissions to recyclability.

Packaging

Environmental credentials and content have been a hot topic in the packaging industry, particularly the transition from singleuse plastics to more sustainable materials.

Since consumers are increasingly paying attention to sustain ability, it is important, and especially in this era of booming ecommerce, for packaging to be environmentally friendly as well as to offer good protection.

Companies are continuously working on the revival and de velopment of new products by changing materials, being more innovative, making products more user-friendly, the role pack aging etc. However, the role packaging plays should not be for gotten for it is important in retaining existing customers and attracting new ones.

In this sense, the approach advocated by PWC is to focus on the efficiency of packaging.2 This includes a comprehensive ap proach around minimum consumption of resources during pro duction, the efficiency of the protection and transport of products, as well as the efficiency of disposal and recycling of goods. This perspective drives the demand for paper and card

board because they are light, recyclable, biodegradable and re cyclable if treated at the end of the life cycle.

Takeaway Packaging

With the unprecedented growth of e-commerce and the arrival of food delivery apps such as Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats, takeaway food has become ever so accessible and so has the con sumption of takeaway packaging.

A Swedish study found that replacing plastic material with cardboard could reduce the climate impact of packaging by 99% making these substitutes most environmentally friendly.

According to APP’s 2018 Consumer Trends Report, con sumers are willing to pay more for fast food products packaged in sustainable materials, with 35% agreeing they would pay up to 10% more. What’s clear is that consumers are searching for, and demanding, evidence that the products they are buying hold sustainability at their core.

This boom of convenience food and drinks has left a visible mark both on life at home and on life in the office. Think about that meal deal you bought on the way to work, those morning coffees from the vending machine, the hunt for cutlery to enjoy your packed lunch from home or that weekly takeaway with the whole team. Food containers, disposable cups and cutlery etc. have come to play a vital role in the office.

Significant innovations in the recyclability of paper products should help businesses to reconcile this need, not only in terms of traditional office products, but also for food and drink pack aging such as coffee cups. APP’s ‘FooPak Bio Natura’, a com postable packaging solution, is a practical alternative to plastic and Styrofoam packaging materials which demonstrates our abil ity to achieve sustainable goals.

Bringing it all together

These are just some examples of what might be in a dealer’s product portfolio. No matter what products are included, it is im portant to have a supplier code of conduct. This code of conduct is the first step to ensuring that your supply chain is sustainable since it outlines what you expect from your suppliers. No matter the size of the business, any organisation should have a clear set of guidelines.

Since these guidelines outline the process to gather due dili gence on suppliers, they are considered a key step in achieving sustainable procurement. Without knowing who your suppliers really are, where they are sourcing their products from, and what their processes are, you cannot ensure a fully sustainable supply chain.

Use of nanoparticle binders for paper coatings: A review

Bilge Nazli Altay, Marmara University, Turkey, Steven Bloembergen, EcoSynthetix Corporation, Ontaria, Canada

Cem Aydemir, Marmara University, Turkey

Arif Karademir, Bursa Technical University, Turkey

Paul D. Fleming, Western Michigan University, Michigan, USA

Starch is a biopolymer that is used as a co-binder alongside syn thetic petroleum based latex binders for paper coating applica tions, though it causes production downtimes due to the problems during cooking process, such as gelling; lack of full expansion of starch granules; increase in viscosity during cooling; bacteria growth in cooked starch and difficulties in viscosity control dur ing storage. On the other hand, synthetic binders negatively af fect paper recyclability and biodegradability. To overcome these problems, a new biopolymer binder has been introduced to the paper manufacturing, being used initially as a partial replace ment for petroleum based synthetic latex polymers. This study reviews the recent developments of nanoparticle biopolymer binders, referred to as biolatex binders. These binders are shipped dry and can be dispersed in water without cooking re quirement while improving paper quality and reducing costs of paper manufacturing. They also provide quality benefits, coater runnability improvements and new higher solids coating formu lations for future product advancements.

The growing interest by many industrial segments to use sus tainable materials has stimulated the development of new biopolymer materials. Some of the biomaterials that have a use in papermaking and coating industry are cellulose, coating starches (modified low molecular weight grades of the native material), chitosan, soy protein, alginate, casein, zein, lecithin and cellulose derivatives such as methyl cellulose and car boxymethyl cellulose (CMC), among others [17]. Paper grades sometimes need to be coated with these materials to improve paper printability, surface characteristics or to add extra func tional properties.

Printability is the main quality for high quality colour repro duction, increased ink gloss, uniform appearance or preventing print defects. It is greatly affected by paper porosity since the rate and depth of ink receptivity depends on it. Porosity is measured by the number and size of the voids within the coating layer. The voids can be controlled with different pigments, binder types, dis persing agents and additives in the coating layer.

Nanoparticles (within the range of 1 and 100 nm) show dif ferent properties compared to their bulk materials. Some of the recent nanomaterials in the papermaking and coating industry in clude nano crystalline cellulose (NCC) [5, 16, 32], nano fibrillated cellulose (NFC) [19, 20, 22], TEMPO-oxidized cellulose nano fibrils (TOCN) [8-10, 24] and nanoparticle biopolymer binders [2, 6, 11-13, 15, 18, 23, 25, 26, 30]. The studies have demon strated that these nano materials improve various important prop erties of coated paper. Figure 1 represents an example for the tensile strength and elastic modulus differences between the paper, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) film, cellophane and TOCN film.

Synthetic polymers, such as styrene butadiene (SB), polyvinyl acetate and styrene acrylics, are petroleum based latex binders,

therefore they are not environmentally benign and suffer from price instability with major up and down swings linked to oil prices. They have been used in paper coating applications due to their ability of increasing paper properties and mechanical strength though they reduce recyclability and can cause “white pitch” issues with deposits on calender rolls, etc. Biopolymers have an advantage of being sustainable, renewable and biodegradable, therefore they also reduce the carbon footprint. Biopolymer materials have relatively stable pricing and these ad vantages are driving adoption of these natural products.

When cooked, starch is a mostly soluble biopolymer produced from plant sources such as corn (maize), potato, wheat, tapioca (cassava), pea, rice. It has been used in paper coating applications as a co-binder [17]. Conventionally, starch is purchased in dry granular powder form, either in modified (acid thinned, ther mally modified, thinned/hydroxyethylated, etc.) or in its unmod ified (native) form, and then cooked or chemically/enzymatically modified on site at the mill before it is used in the paper coating [16]. Natural (unmodified, pearl, native) starch is attractive due to its low price, but poor process control frequently reduces pro ductivity and paper quality [21]. Starch in its native form is an ultra-high molecular weight (MW) polymer (>300 million g/mole or Daltons) and that becomes a challenge during cooking production. When starch is cooked in solutions (to allow it to act as a binder) MW must be sharply reduced, to yield cooked solu tions with sufficient substance (i.e. % solids). Modified starch usage is more common than natural starch due to added func tionalities in paper industry. The typical cooking procedure is that starch must be well agitated at room temperature, then heated up to 90-95°C and held at that temperature for 20-30 min utes while maintaining good agitation for complete cook-out of the starch. Improper cooking for paper coating may cause gelling (lack of full expansion of starch granules); increase in viscosity

during cooling; bacterial growth in cooked starch or difficulties in viscosity control during storage, all of which can cause quality issues and production downtimes. For papermaking, if starch granules are not ruptured completely, the size press nip will likely reject it, and later may cause viscosity changes, drying and scale problems on the paper machine.

The first starch nanoparticle biopolymer binder in the paper industry were developed, produced and commercialised by EcoSynthetix Corporation as EcoSphere™ biolatex™ binders with the intention of replacing petroleum-based synthetic latex [4]. EcoSynthetix has >100,000 ton/annum capacity at its man ufacturing facilities in North America and Europe [28, 29] and the biolatex has 99% bio based agricultural feedstock that makes it sustainable, renewable and biodegradable. These advantages also help companies reduce their carbon footprint. EcoSynthetix has patented the process of using a twin-screw extruder with dif ferent shear forces, upstream pressure and a crosslinking agent to generate starch nanoparticles around 100 nm (dominant size range is 20-150 nm, ideal for low viscosity biolatex dispersions). Figure 2 represent the conversion of native starch to the biolatex emulsion polymer along with TEM, STEM and ESEM images of the native starch granules and biolatex particles. Unlike natu ral (native) and modified starch, these nanoparticles do not re quire cooking, and can be readily dispersed in water due to their internally crosslinked, water-swollen and deformable colloid par ticle nature [3, 31]. It is reported that starch is known as a stiff and brittle polymer while the nanoparticle biopolymer is more flexible and helps to reduce folding and scoring cracks [16]. The extrusion process is used to bring down the starch granule diam eters from micron to nano range. In Figure 3, the comparison of particle sizes between the biopolymer nanoparticles binders and synthetic/natural binders are represented. Over the past two decades, SB latex has become the dominant paper coating binder system in the industry. Its particle size has been pushed to smaller particle sizes towards an aggressive 100-120 nm target, given

that smaller latex particle sizes have higher surface area, benefi cial for binding performance. Biolatex emulsions do not require surfactants nor other repulsion mechanisms that help keep syn thetic latex particles in stable suspensions (which inadvertently adds cost and reduces other performance requirements). The bi olatex binders, on the other hand, are smaller in size, which is beneficial to binding power, and they do not contain added sur factants but produce naturally highly stable dispersions with long shelf lives.

Materials and Methods

Assessment method for this study was a literature review. Ex isting knowledge gathered based on the data from patents, jour nals, conference papers, industry magazines and pilot testing. In pilot test experiments, the coating formulation ingredients were clay, ground calcium carbonate (GCC), titanium dioxide (TiO2), carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), lubricant, rheology modifier and optical brightening agent (OBA). Synthetic latexes in coat ing formulations were replaced on a 1:1 basis with the Eco Sphere bio based nanoparticle latex.

Results and Discussions

According to ASTM D6866 bio based content testing, the bi olatex binder has 99+% bio based agricultural feedstock, while synthetic latex is based on 99+% fossil. The test indicated that the biolatex binder is a sustainable, recyclable and biodegradable binder [6, 15, 18, 23, 25, 26]. The research showed that 73% car bon footprint reduction is possible with biolatex binder [18]. Overall results conducted by the researchers showed that 30 to 50% of synthetic latex replacement with biolatex binder is im mediately possible in coating formulation. Further optimisation can help attain higher substitution levels, coating structure, strength and optical properties were improved. The biolatex binder showed increase in brightness; equal or higher gloss and better opacity values. Brightness value would be increased fur ther when the TiO2 pigment co-extruded with the binder [18]. The biolatex binder could increase solid content 1 to 3% that en ables saving in dryer energy due to having less water content in the coating structure [6, 15, 23, 25, 26]. The amount of some coating components such as CMC, polyvinyl alcohol and rheol ogy modifier were eliminated or decreased with the biolatex binder addition [6, 23, 26]. Runnability of the coating in the coater was increased due to better coating uniformity, better rhe ology and superior water retention that has been achieved by using biolatex [23, 26]. Better paper stiffness value was also re ported [23]. The experiment showed no significant effect on wet pick performance of the coating with biolatex binder, yet the IGT dry pick performance improved 7 to 31%. Lower binder migra tion was observed when 20% of synthetic binder replaced with biolatex binder [6].

Figure

Native starch conversion to biolatex

binders

Conclusion

Bio based nanoparticle latex binders are successfully replac ing petroleum based synthetic binders while improving paper quality. The crosslinked, water-swollen and deformable colloid particles are represented that they can enable further cost savings for manufacturers since the biolatex binder does not require the typical starch cooking procedure and can be readily dispersed directly in water. Biolatex binder has 99+% bio based agricul tural feedstock. It is sustainable, renewable and biodegradable and helps paper manufacturers to reduce their carbon footprint. Future studies need to investigate optical, mechanical and print ability properties of different papers coated with bio based nanoparticle binder.

Acknowledgements

This study was supported in part by the Scientific and Tech nological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) under the 2214-A program.

References

[1] Bloembergen, (2009) TAPPI Specialty Papers Conference Pro ceedings.

[2] Bloembergen et al, (2005) US6921430 B2 (Patent).

[3] Bloembergen et al, (2010) TAPPI 11th Advanced Coating Fun damentals Symposium.

[4] Bloembergen et al, (2010) J. of Pulp and Paper Science, 36 (3), 151-161.

[5] Cha et al, (2014) Carb. Polymers, 110, 298-301.

[6] Figliolino & Rosso, (2009) Paper 360° Mag., 4 (6), 25-28.

[7] Figliolino et al, (2009) PAPERCON ’09 Conference Proceedings.

[8] Fujisawa et al, (2011) Carb. Polymers, 84 (1), 579-583.

[9] Fukuzumi, H. (2011) Studies on Structures and Properties of TEMPO-oxidized Cellulose Nanofibrils Films, PhD thesis, Uni versity of Tokyo.

[10] Fukuzumi et al, (2013) Carb. Polymers, 93 (1), 172-177.

[11] Giezen et al, (2004) US6677386 B1 (Patent).

[12] Helbling et al, (2004) US6825252 B2 (Patent).

[13] Helbling et al, (2007) US7285586 B2 (Patent).

[14] Helbling et al, (2007) US7160420 B2 (Patent).

[15] Houze & Pajari, (2012) Paper 360° Mag., 56-57.

[16] Klass, (2007) Paper 360° Mag., 30-31.

[17] Klass, (2011) PAPERCON 2011 Conference Proceedings.

[18] Lee et al, (2010) PAPERCON 2010 Conference Proceedings.

[19] Liu et al, (2015) Carb. Polymers, 117, 996-1001.

[20] Martins et al, (2013) Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 417, 111-119.

[21] Mishra, A. K. (2005) Process and Paper, 88 (8), 40-42.

[22] Missoum et al, (2013) Industrial Crops and Products, 48, 98-105.

[23] Oberndorfer et al, (2011) PAPERCON 2011 Conference Pro ceedings.

[24] Okita et al, (2011) Biomacromolecules, 12 (2), 518-522.

[25] Shin et al, (2012), PAPERCON 2012 Conference Proceedings.

[26] Shin et al, (2013) PAPERCON 2013 Conference Proceedings.

[27] Song et al, (2011) Carb. Polymers, 85 (1), 208-214.

[28] Van Ballegooie et al, (2012) World Pulp & Paper, 100.

[29] Van Ballegooie et al, (2013) World Pulp & Paper, 88-92.

[30] Van Soest et al, (2004) US6755915 B1 (Patent).

[31] Wildi et al, (2015) US9011741 B2 (Patent).

[32] Zaman et al, (2012) Carb. Polymers, 89 (1), 163-170.

Published first in: Journal of Graphic Engineering and Design, 8 (1), 2017, 41-43. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license 3.0 Serbia.

INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM IN THE FIELDS OF PULP, PAPER,

Algae: the Forest in a Flask

For two millennia papermakers have utilised a huge number of ‘higher’ or vascular plants (that is those with lignified tissue for conducting water and nutrients around the plant) as the raw ma terial for making paper. But in recent years, scientists have in vestigated the use of another grouping from the vegetable kingdom as a source of raw materials: algae. Rather than being a strict scientific genus, this is a collective term encompassing a huge number of unrelated, mainly water-dwelling plants (al though there are terrestrial and even airborne varieties), ranging from unicellular microalgae (of a few microns in size, Figure 1) to large multicellular organisms such as giant kelp (which can grow to 50m or more in length). This primer will describe some of the properties and characteristics of this grouping, and their uses, particularly in papermaking, that are being investigated.

Structure and Constituents

The general definition used to describe algae is that they are photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms; that is, they gain energy by harnessing sunlight and CO2 via photosynthesis, and their cells have a nucleus enclosed by a membrane. This latter point is much more than a mere technicality, as it differentiates them from prokaryotic cells – bacteria – which have no internal mem brane structures – and herein lies the first surprise: the wellknown ‘blue-green algae’ (Figure 2) that bloom in watercourses due to eutrophication are actually cyanobacteria – and not algae at all! (That said, they are often grouped in with algae for study purposes.)

All algae lack true roots, stem or leaves, and all have plastid cells which contain chlorophyll, nature’s wonder pigment used to perform photosynthesis. As regards chemical composition, it is not possible to be too specific because this group of plants en compasses such a wide variety of species. Almost all members contain a cell wall of non-living material, consisting of two major but discrete forms of polysaccharides: fibrillary (Cellulose, Mannans, Xylans) and amorphous (Alginic Acid, Fucoidan, Galactans etc).1 Alongside these are proteins, lipids (both oils and fats), various food reserves (e.g. Starches, Mannitol) and in organic materials. Table 1 shows a few isolated values for algae

Algae species Protein (%) Carbohydrate (%) Lipid (%)

Anabaena cylindrical Lemm. 43-56 25-30 4-7

Botryococcus braunii Kütz 8-17 8-20 25-75

Spirogyra sp. 6-20 33-64 11-21

Tetraselmis maculata Butcher 52 15 3

Ulva lactuca L. 17 59 3-4

Table 1. Chemical composition of some algae.

chemical constitution, showing the wide diversity possible.2

The wide range of chemicals that they contain, along with the relative ease with which they can be cultivated, and the fact that most species being aquatic, they do not require land, which is becoming an ever-more valuable resource, means they are being investigated as never before. Add to this some surprisingly high yields – cultivated algae has been calculated to produce a biomass growth potential of 22kg/m2/yr compared to 0.54.4kg/m2/yr for terrestrial plants, and it is easy to see why scien tists view them with interest.3 Indeed, for thousands of years a few species (such as certain seaweeds) have been harvested (Fig ure 3) for human and animal feedstuffs, or used as fertilizer; now, increasingly, the microalgae are being investigated for a whole host of new, mainly industrial, applications.

Current and Proposed Uses

Algae are a rich source of biologically active compounds, in cluding polyunsaturated fatty acids, anti-oxidants and pigments. In addition they are characterised by quick growth and a high ability to fix carbon dioxide.4 Current work includes investigat ing their uses as foods, in medical treatments, as ingredients in cosmetic formulations, and as fertilizers. In addition, work is in creasingly being focussed upon using them as vectors to express new chemicals (equivalent to fermentation, where yeasts con sume sugar and express alcohol). So, algae can be used as a source of biofuel (typically biogas or bio-oil), of a variety of

Daven Chamberlain, PITA Publications Editor

Figure 1. Algae – the forest in a flask (photo Willem van Aken, CSIRO, cc-by-sa-3.0)

Figure 2. Blue-green algal bloom in irrigation drain (photo Willem van Aken, CSIRO, cc-by-sa-3.0)

other chemicals, and in addition can be used to clean wastewater of various harmful constituents such as heavy metals, pesticides and other toxins.5

Nevertheless, although they show potential for all these uses, as always the devil is in the detail. For example, a recent study assessed the use of microalgae in European temperate zones as a constituent in an anaerobic digester, for production of biogas; the results were encouraging, but the break-even selling price for electricity was calculated as EUR120/MWh – the economics did not stack up, but in future they may do.6

Application to Papermaking

The application of algae to papermaking is nothing new; aca demic interest dates from at least 1769, when observations on natural agglomerations of filamentous algae in Tuscany to form a paper-like substrate were published.7 Moving forward 250 years, today the interest in algae as raw material for paper making encompasses two very different parts: as a source of cellulose fibre, and as a source of chemicals. (Possible uses for production of biogas, or bioremediation of waste streams, will not be considered here, although they no doubt exist.)

As regards cellulose, the amount present in different species varies widely, but in those containing a reasonable amount, there is the significant advantage (compared to wood) of low or zero levels of lignin, which results in re duced energy requirements for pulp production. In addition, algal cellulose has a very different macrostructure to that produced by terrestrial plants, in particular with a far higher specific surface area per unit mass. Add to this a higher de gree of crystallinity, and it becomes obvious that algae are not necessarily a ‘replacement’ for wood; rather they offer possible niche materials unavailable elsewhere in the plant kingdom.

Green (Figure 4), brown (Figure 5) and red (Figure 6)8 algae are all promising materials for papermaking, with the green vari ant containing most cellulose.9 To date, tests show that paper made solely from algal cellulose tends to have low strength prop erties,10 indicating that it is best used as a partial replacement for conventional pulps in order to leverage specific properties.11 Favini have made some niche products containing up to 30% algae,12 but these are very much a minority, and to date most work has been of a speculative or research nature. Suggested products include cigarettes, diapers, face-masks and speaker cones;13 Tissue and Hygiene products;14 and a wide range of gen eral products, from Tissue to Carton to Newsprint and beyond.15 Elsewhere it is proposed that the most benefit can be derived

from use of algae as a ‘filler’ using minimal processing so as to maintain particle size and reduce processing costs.16

Unsurprisingly, given the low lignin content, high degree of crystallinity, and the relative ease with which non-cellulose com ponents can be removed, algal cellulose has been investigated as a raw material from which to extract nanocellulose, specifically for medical filtration purposes.17 However, when it comes to sources of cellulose outside of higher plants, bacterial cellulose, which is of higher purity still, has been subject to the greatest study.

Turning to the area of chemical derivatives, the extraction and use of alginates is too widely practiced to warrant mention here; suffice it to say that alginates already find commercial use as rheology modifiers, sizing agents and strength additives (and in deed, the paper industry is calculated to use 5% of the global al

Figure 4. Green algae (photo Micropix, cc-by-sa-3.0)

Figure 5. Brown algae (photo Estonian Museum of Natural His tory, cc-by-sa-3.0)

Figure 6. Red Algae on bleached coral (photo John Martin Davies, ccby-sa-3.0)

Figure 3. Members of the local Okinawa community gather hijiki from the ocean during the Hijiki Harvest at Camp Courtney, Oki nawa, Japan (photo Cpl. Kayla Staten)

ginate market).18

Of more interest in this short review are the novel chemicals that have been extracted and assessed in recent years, which have included: Agar, as a surface sizing agent;19 Agar extraction waste as filler;20 Carrageenan Gum as a dry strength additive,21 and algae as an anti-microbial additive.22 Algal polysaccharides have also been used to modify properties of cellulose nanofibril films.23

Algal Research in the UK

Currently there is significant research being performed in the UK in this area (though none, currently, in any area related to the paper industry). Universities involved include Aston, Sheffield and Swansea. Information can be found on www.algaeuk.org.uk ; https://algaewales.wordpress.com ; and www.nweu rope.eu/ALG-AD among a host of other websites.

References

1. Sahoo, D. & Baweja, P., “General Characteristics of Algae”, Chapter 1, in The Algae World, Sahoo, D. & Seckback, J., Eds., Springer, 2015.

2. Schroeder, G. et al, “Economic Aspects of Algae Biomass Har vesting for Industrial Prusposes. The Life-Cycle Assessment of the Product”, Chapter 12 in Algae Biomass: Characteristics and Applications, Chojnacka, K. et al, Eds, Springer, 2018.

3. Azeem, M. et al, “Algal-Based Biopolymers”, Chapter 1 in Algae Based Polymers, Blends, and Composites, Zia, K.M. et al, Eds., Elsevier, 2017.

4. Michalak, I. & Chojnacka, K., “Introduction: Toward Algaebased Products”, Chapter 1 in Algae Biomass: Characteristics and Applications, Chojnacka, K. et al, Eds, Springer, 2018.

5. Singh, B. et al, Eds, Algae and Environmental Sustainability, Springer, 2017. Pandey, A. et al, Biofuels from Algae, Elsevier, 2014.

6. Dave A, et al, “Techno-economic assessment of biofuel develop ment by anaerobic digestion of European marine cold-water sea weeds”, Bioresource Tech., 135, 2013, 120-127.

7. Strange, J., Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. of London, 59, Dec.1769, 50-56.

8. Seo, Y-B. et al, “Red algae and their use in papermaking”, Biore source Tech., 101, 2010, 2549-2553.

9. Moral, A. et al, “Potential Uses of Green Alga Ulva sp. For Pa

Standards Update

Daven Chamberlain Chairman PAI/11

This column contains a summary of recent work performed under the auspices of PAI/11, the BSI committee that deals with Methods of Test for Paper, Boards and Pulps.

New or updated standards that have been issued recently:

1. BS ISO 6588-2:2020: Paper, board and pulps — Determi nation of pH of aqueous extracts Part 1: Cold extraction.

2. BS ISO 6588-2:2020: Paper, board and pulps — Determi nation of pH of aqueous extracts Part 2: Hot extraction.

3. BS ISO 8791-5:2020: Paper and board — Determination of roughness/smoothness (air leak methods) Part 5: Oken method.

4. BS ISO 21896:2020: Paper, pulp, and recycling — De colouration test of dye coloured paper products and paper products printed using dye inks.

Subject reports and documents submitted for vote / comment have included:

1. Cores: Measurement of Dimensions.

permaking”, Bioresources, 14(30), 2019, 6851-6862.

10. Mukherjee, P. & Keshri, J.P., “Present status and development of algal pulp for hand-made paper making technology: a review”, Adv. in Plants & Agriculture Res., 8(1), 2018, 10-18.

11. Chao, K-P, “Feasibility of utilizing Rhizoclonium in pulping and papermaking”, J. Appl. Phycol., 12(1), 2000, article 53.

12. Toland, J., “The Paper from the Laoggon”, Pulp & Paper Int., 47(5), 2005, 14-17.

13. Anon, “Making Paper from Seaweed”, AlgaeIndustryMagazine.com, 21 Dec. 2014.

14. Kimberly-Clark: “Tissue products containing microalgae mate rials”, US Patent Application No.12/972767, 2011; “High strength macroalgae pulps”, US Patent Application No.13/481125, 2016.

15. Corbion Biotech Inc, “Algal thermoplastics, thermosets, paper, adsorbants and absorbants”, US9758757B2, 2012.

16. Knoshaug, E.P. et al, “The potential of photosynthetic aquatic plant species as sources of useful cellulose fibres – a review”, J. Appl. Phycol., 25, 2013, 1123-1134.

17. Metreveli, G., “A Size�Exclusion Nanocellulose Filter Paper for Virus Removal”, Adv. Healthcare Mat., 3(10), 2014, 1546-1550. Asper, M. et al, “Removal of xenotropic murine leukemia virus by nanocellulose based filter paper”, Biologicals, 43, 2015, 452456.

18. Kraan, S., “Algal polysaccharides, novel applications and out look”, in Chang, C.-F., Ed., Carbohydrates – comprehensive stud ies on glycobiology and glycotechnology, InTech, 2012.

19. Youn, S.K. & Seo, Y.B., “Use of agar as surface sizing materials in papermaking”, J. Korea Tech. Assn. of the Pulp and Paper Ind., 40(3), 2008, 9-14.

20. Pei, J. et al, “Using agar extraction waste of Gracilaria le maneiformis in the papermaking industry”, J. Appl. Phycol., 25(4), 2013, 1135-1141.

21. Liu, Z. et al, “Carrageenan as a dry strength additive for paper making”, PloS ONE, 12(2), 2017.

22. Ku K.J. et al, “Application of edible red algae paper coated with green tea extract for shelf life extension of Kimbab”, Food Sci. Biotechnol., 17, 2008, 421-424.

23. Benselfelt, T. et al, “Supramolecular double networks of cellulose nanofibrils and algal polysaccharides with excellent wet mechan ical properties”, Green Chem., 2018, 20, 2558-2570.

2. Corrugated: Edgewise Crush (Waxed Edge).

3. Pulps: Kraft liquor – Hydrogen Sulphide Ion Concentration; Kraft Liquor – Residual Alkali; Kraft Liquor – Total, Active and Effective Alkali.

4. Tissue: Opticals (D65/10°); Thickness.

Current Standards that have been submitted for Periodic Review:

1. Composition: Air Permeance (Oken).

2. Food contact: Diisopropylnaphthalene (DIPN) content by solvent extraction.

3. Pulp: Alkali Resistance; Chlorine Consumption (Degree of delignification).

4. Strength: Bursting Strength after immersion in water; Fold ing Endurance.

Anyone interested in any of the standards or work mentioned above should contact the PAI/11 Chairman (telephone 0300 3020 159 or email daven@pita.co.uk).

Gen Green: How Millennials are driving the Circular Economy

Sam Jones, Sustainability Manager, DS Smith, Kemsley Mill, Kent

Millennials as of late have shown tremendous championing of sustainability and social justice. As their spending power grows, this is having an increasing impact on the brands that now must adapt to their attitudes and spending habits in order to survive. It sounds threatening, but the truth is that there are a variety of ways that millennials are fuelling a more sustainable and circular economy.

1. They’re social butterflies

Millennials are far less tolerant of products that have a neg ative environmental impact, and they don’t just vote with their wallets; they also use their voice to tell the world about their views. Millennials command a huge share of voice on social platforms and have used that to lead heated conversations against brands who are still getting the basics wrong, such as using single-use plastics, non-recyclable material, and need lessly over packaging their goods. Brands that demonstrate that they’re leading the way on sustainability and proactively committing to social causes, won’t be ignored in the con sumer lens. But it has to be credible and authentic; those who attempt to greenwash or fool consumers with unsustainable practices will likely see their brand trust tarnished in the long run.

2. The conscious consumer

It’s official, we’ve entered the era of the value-driven con sumer, where purchasing decisions are no longer based on “is this product good for me” but, “is it good for the planet?”, espe cially amongst millennials who have embraced the idea of shar ing more. The rapid rise of the ethical consumer has urged companies to build and convey, and win the hearts of the ecoconscious consumer, but how should they do it? Clever packag ing for example, can aid the circular economy concept by enabling the re-use of packs already in the supply cycle. As seen with Ted Baker, the brand developed a completely recyclable pack, with the aim of reusing 20% of these boxes annually. This way, companies can help the environment and show customers they care.

3. Millennials have spending power and will cash out for what they believe in

As the largest demographic in the workforce Millennials can’t be ignored and they are willing to put their money where their beliefs are. Consequently, the products and ser vices they purchase need to match their expectations. To en sure eco-minded millennials continue to loosen their purse strings, brands need to offer them a deal on sustainability that appeals to their sustainable mentality. With the public dis cussion on the environment widespread, businesses are al ready rethinking how they can be savvier about the materials they use in their products. By maximising recyclability, brands can contribute to saving the planet, and keep their edge in the market.

4. Their shopping habits are forcing brands to rethink packaging

It’s not just Millennials’ attitudes that are fuelling a circular economy, it’s also the way they buy their goods. Because of the global rise of e-commerce, companies are having to rethink their packaging to ensure it is designed in a robust way to allow prod ucts to be delivered through a variety of channels. As they review their packaging, brands are under constant scrutiny to ensure they get every aspect of their packaging right, including goods protection, sustainability, environmental and most recently, an exciting experience. Unboxing videos have been the latest trend to gain prominence, proving extremely popular on a variety of channels. If brands can engage customers in these key moments of the purchasing process, and instil excitement from a recycled package, we’re likely to see brands around the world follow suit in their desire to contribute to the overall customer experience in more sustainable ways.

Where do we go from here?

As brands, packaging companies, and recycling authorities work together to adapt to stricter environmental regulations we need to understand that the attitudes of millennials are actually helping us move in the right direction. The challenge for all will be embracing this change while ensuring convenience. To thrive in a market dominated by millennial consumers, companies must embed sustainability and circularity into their business strategies, and ensure they meet the demand for always-on, same day, flex ible delivery services. In this changing world, packaging is key.

The good news is that we’re already making progress. We’re seeing a move away from single-use, hard-to-recycle packaging material, and towards more easily recyclable packaging such as cardboard. Indeed, cardboard already has a recycling rate of 85% across the EU, the highest of any material. These are steps in the right direction and a holistic approach from both Industry and Government too will be vital as we make even more meaningful progress on the journey.

Made2fit

DS Smith

Sustainable paper-based alternatives could be restricted under the ambiguous and wide-reaching Single Use Plastics Directive

Holly Whitbread, External Communications Manager

In recent months, the UK Paper-based Industries, along with our colleagues in Europe, have expressed concerns about the poten tial scope of the Single-Use Plastics Directive (SUPD). Some of the proposed definitions associated with the Directive are am biguous and wide-reaching. There has been much discussion about the extent to which paper and board could be included. In deed, it is understood that the Directive may lead to the perverse situation where all single-use products may be restricted, includ ing more sustainable alternatives to plastics.

In June 2019, the European Union adopted the SUPD which originates from the European Commission’s Plastic Strategy which focuses on reducing marine litter. Documentaries such as Blue Planet II have shown the devastating impact that single-use plastic products have on our marine environment, destroying habitats and the animals within them. Tackling single-use plastic waste is one of the significant environmental challenges which this generation faces.

The SUPD “promotes circular approaches”, working to give priority to sustainable and non-toxic re-usable products rather than to single-use ones and it aims to reduce the quantity of waste generated. The Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI) supports the spirit of the Directive. Paper-based products are the heart of the circular movement, as paper is a renewable, recyclable, and biodegradable material. However, we have deep concerns about the potential scope of the SUPD which risks restricting all sin gle-use products and therefore could deprive consumers of sus tainable paper-based alternatives.

The European Commission has taken an unpragmatic and in flexible view on the definitions of plastic in this Directive. The scope may even cover natural polymers, including cellulose. If so, every paper-based alternative for plastics would immediately be under the scope of the Directive if the recipe contains any poly mer-based process and product aids. This would not only be detri mental to our industry but fundamentally it would deny people access to a viable sustainable alternative to single-use plastics.

Products where plastic may act as “a main structural compo nent” are considered within the scope of the Directive. A key concern is that the Commission has not recognised the difference between structural and functional in the SUPD.

The Directive would encompass even a very thin coating of plastic. For example, a paper cup would be defined as a singleuse plastic product by the Directive. In the Paper Industry we are working to seek alternatives through technical innovation. Whilst

legislatively, one way forward would be to set out an upper limit for allowable maximum polymeric content. This is an initiative which has been adopted in France for paper cups.

If the SUPD is interpreted in its broadest sense, all and every paper-based alternative for plastics could fall under the scope of the Directive if its formulation contains any polymer-based pro cess and product aids, even in small percentages. This would contradict the EU’s mission to reduce single-use plastics. In this worst-case scenario, the SUPD will also have wider economic impacts on our Industry through taxation or fees following the definitions from the Directive.

Whilst the UK has now officially left the EU and is in the transition phase which is due to come to an end on 31st Decem ber 2020, the SUPD was adopted mid-way through 2019 whilst the UK was still a Member State, therefore, its provisions may still be directly applicable to UK businesses. However, the UK Government will be able to amend provisions of the Directive after the end of the transition period.

Our counterparts at the Confederation of European Paper In dustries (CEPI) and the European Federation of Corrugated Board Manufacturers (FEFCO) have been working hard to lobby the European Commission to modify the SUPD to ensure it al lows some flexibility and provide technical information. We wholeheartedly support their efforts and will make representa tions upon similar lines to the UK Government to ensure they take a more pragmatic approach.

As we leave the EU it is vital the detail of this Directive, when applied to the UK, is modified for the sake of practicality. Gov ernment Guidance should place sufficient importance on the main component of a single use product. It is fundamental to ac knowledge that most packaging consists of several materials. Therefore, greater consideration should be given to the main ma terial of a single-use item, rather than just a structural compo nent, particularly concerning the polymeric content.

Some aspects of the Directive, when interpreted in the broad est way possible, are nonsensical. The EU guidance which sup ports the Directive must provide a pragmatic way forward. If the Directive aims to reduce single-use plastics products, the poten tially inflexible nature of its implementation may be counterpro ductive. Through its wide scope, it should not arbitrarily preclude any single-use product. Paper products can provide a sustainable alternative to single-use plastics and will help to build a circular economy for future generations.

soon to a screen near

...

Masterclass Webinar Series

Compendium of Recent Orders

Daven Chamberlain

The list below contains a summary of orders reported by a host of major suppliers to the Paper Industry and related sectors be tween the Spring 2020 edition of Paper Technology International and the end of May 2020. Further information on each entry can be found online. Supplier companies wishing to pub licise their success in gaining orders should send details to Daven Chamberlain via editor@pita.co.uk

ABB:

1. Metsä Fibre (Kemi Mill, Finland) electrification and drive technology (bioproduct mill)

2. New-Indy Containerboard (South Carolina, USA) paper ma chine and winder machine drive systems, Quality Control System, and Open Control System for rebuild of PM3; also, L&W Autoline for automated paper testing

3. WestRock Co. (Washington Mill, USA) dry end drive sys tem replacement

A.CELLI:

1. Karweb Nonwovens (Gaziantep, Turkey) winding line for spunlace (nonwovens)

2. TWE Meulebeke BVBA (Belgium) spooling line (nonwo vens)

ANDRITZ:

1. BCNonwovens (Spain) spunlace line (nonwoven)

2. Bracell (Lençóis Paulista, Brazil “Star Project”) DSC and Operator Training Simulator

3. Guangxi Guoxu Group Co., Ltd. (Wuzhou City, Guangxi Province, China) pressurised refining system (MDF plant)

4. Karweb Nonwovens (Gaziantep, Turkey) spunlace line (nonwoven)

5. Klabin (Ortigueira Mill, Brazil, “PUMA Project II”) com plete biomass gasification plant and a new biomass handling line

6. Kookil Paper (Zhangjiagang) Limited Corporation (Jiangsu Province, China) complete stock preparation system includ ing broke handling and fibre recovery

7. Mayr-Melnhof Karton (Frohnleiten Mill, Austria) vertical screw thickener dewatering system

8. MOPAK Kağıt Karton, (Dalaman Mill, Turkey) rebuild of PM3 (to convert from coated board to coated and uncoated white top testliner)

9. Papierfabrik Palm (Aalen-Neukochen Mill, Germany) con tainerboard line (PM5) with automation package

10. Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Limited (Mondipatti Vil lage, Tamil Nadu, India) recovery boiler, evaporation plant and white liquor plant

11. United Pulp and Paper Co., Inc. (Calumpit Mill, Bulacan, Philippines) OCC pulping line (capacity 870admt/d)

BELLMER:

1. Glatfelter (Lydney Mill, UK) rebuild of dry end PM8 in cluding delivery of softnip calender

2. L-Pack (Russia) rebuild of second hand machine including new press section and winder

BTG:

1. Palm (all mills) dataPARC™ data historian, analytics, and visualisation software

CELLWOOD:

1. Södra Cell (Mörrum Mill, Sweden) Grubbens horizontal pulper (TM2)

CLYDE INDUSTRIES:

1. Anon (via Andritz) sootblowers for new recovery and power boilers at pulp mill

FITNIR ANALYZERS:

1. Södra (Värö Mill, Sweden) online pulp liquor analyser

HEIMBACH:

1. Palm Group (Aalen-Neukochen Mill, Germany) forming fabrics, press felts, shoe press belts and transfer belts for the new PM5

HERGEN:

1. Avelino Bragagnolo S/A (Santa Catarina, Brazil) expansion of PM3 including flat table extension, new suction couch roller, installation of 4 new pre-drying cylinders and 12 new post-drying cylinders

KADANT:

1. Tolko Industries (High Prairie facility, Alberta, USA) two pocket batch feeders for an OSB line upgrade

KEMIRA:

1. UPM-Kymmene Corporation (Paso de los Toros, Fray Ben tos, Uruguay) extension of bleaching chemicals contract

LEDINEK:

1. Södra (Värö Mill, Sweden) Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) production line

PEZZOLATO:

1. Biomasa d.o.o. (Slovenia) stationary chipping plant (biomass production)

PMP:

1. Smurfit Kappa (Uberaba Mill, Brazil) two hydraulic head boxes

PÖYRY:

1. Grigeo Klaipėda (Greece) audit of environmental, occupa tional health and safety, and operational processes

2. LD Cellulose (Minas Gerais state, Brazil) Engineering, Pro curement, Construction Management (EPCM) and Balance of Plant (BOP) for new dissolving pulp plant

3. Metsä Fibre (Kemi Mill, Finland) engineering services and project management contract (new bio-product mill)

4. Metsä Fibre (Rauma Mill, Finland) engineering services contract (new saw mill)

5. Norske Skog (Saugbrugs Mill, Halden, Sweden) detailed engineering services for a major energy efficiency project

PROJET:

1. Chelny Paper Mill (Tatarstan, Russia) dry end radial saw tail cutters

PULPEYE:

1. Holmen (all mills, Sweden) ExtractEye on-line monitoring system

RUNTECH SYSTEMS:

1. DS Smith (Kemsley Mill, UK) three turbo blowers (PM3)

SAEL:

1. Cartiere Ermolli (Moggio Udinese, Italy) water-cooled sec tional drive (PM3)

2. Cartiera San Martino (Broccostella-Frosinone, Italy) DCS control management (sub-contractor to ST Macchine)

3. Gruppo Cordenons (Cordenons PN, Italy) rebuild drives and automation on Coating Machine 1, and Sheeter 2 in line with Coater 2.

SPM:

1. Eska (Hoogezand plant, Netherlands) online condition mon itoring systems

ST MACCHINE:

1. Cartiera San Martino (Broccostella-Frosinone, Italy) stock preparation system

TIETO:

1. Malaysian Newsprint Industries Sdn Bhd (Malaysia) se lected as their business transformation partner, in particular to improve On Time In Full Delivery Service (OTIF)

TOSCOTEC:

1. Essel Kağıt (Osmaniye Mill, Southern Turkey) tissue line (at 5.7m the country’s largest)

TRÜTZSCHLER NONWOVENS:

1. Papel Aralar (Amezketa, Spain) AquaJet technology for spunlacing and a multi-drum drier for PM5 (nonwovens)

VALMET:

1. APP Guangxi Jingui Pulp and Paper (Qinzhou Mill, China) coated board line (PM2) with automation and industrial in ternet

2. Asia Paper Manufacturing (Sihwa Mill, Republic of Korea) new sizing section

3. AustroCel Hallein GmbH (Hallein, Austria) automation to bioethanol plant

4. Blue Paper (Strasbourg Mill, France) rebuild of drier sec tion

5. Hayat Kimya (Mersin, Turkey) tissue line including automa tion package

6. Hitachi Zosen Inova AG (Moscow, Russia) automation for energy from waste plant

7. JK Paper Limited (Fort Songadh Mill, India) complete millwide DSC

8. LD Celulose S.A. (Minas Gerais state, Brazil) ash treatment system

9. Metsä Board (Kyro Mill, Finland) reel and winding tech nology

10. Metsä Fibre (Kemi Mill, Finland) preliminary agreement for key technology and automation for planned bio-product mill

11. Orora Limited (Botany Mill, New South Wales, Australia) maintenance contact for B9 boardmaking line

12. Papierfabrik Palm (Aalen-Neukochen Mill, Germany) Paper Lab automated testing laboratory (the 300th sold)

13. Shandong Sun Paper Industry Joint Stock Co., Ltd. (Sun Paper, China) automation systems for PM39 and PM40

14. Sri Andal Paper Mills (Tamil Nadu, India) new container board line

15. Stora Enso (Oulu Mill, Finland) automation package for PM7 conversion

16. Sun Paper (Beihai, China) fine paper making line with stock preparation, an extensive automation package and recovery boiler

17. Tampereen Sähkölaitos Oy (Tampere, Finland) biomass boiler (district power plant)

18. Zespół Elektrowni Pątnów-Adamów-Konin SA (Konin, Poland) conversion of a lignite-fired boiler into a biomassfired boiler (district power plant)

VEOLIA WATER TECHNOLOGIES:

1. Riau Andalan Pulp & Paper (Indonesia) chloride removal system

VOITH:

1. JSC Yarpaper (Russia) extension to existing recycling line (PM1)

2. Papel Aralar (Amezketa, Spain) HydroFormer, stock preparation, master reel and wet end process for PM5 (nonwovens)

We would like to invite PITA Members to join and contribute to our very own LinkedIn Group and hope you will use this as an opportunity to ‘stay in touch’ with friends and colleagues and, perhaps, renew contact with some of those who you have lost contact with.

Conference

Exhibition / Meeting Reports

As regards paper bags, these were one of the ‘in’ products last year, but this year failed to register. Only one maker (Artpack Paper Packaging, Turkey) had any on show. That said, a num ber of plastic bag makers were pushing product made from biopolymer.

Every packaging event seems to have a theme. This year was no exception, with ‘sustainability’ the watchword on a great number of stands, and the subject of many talks at the excellent (and free to attend) seminar stations located around the two halls in which the exhibition was situated. Last year ‘compostability’ was to the fore, trumping ‘recyclability’. Also, as occurred last year, a small (but increasing) number of stands were exhibiting very ‘non-traditional’ wares, compared to what has been shown previously; last year I noted the presence of makers of safety in terlocks, while this year saw robotics manufacturers (Reeco Automation) and optical test equipment specialists (Konica Minolta) among the “odd crew”.

First to paper manufacturers. Going back a few years there were a number of stalwarts that could be relied upon to turn up annually; however, over the years they have dwindled. This it eration saw only three take stands: Kotkamills (Finland), a highend coated board maker; Parteks (Turkey), a producer of household and industrial tissue and corrugated board; and Sea man Paper (USA & China) showing very high-end lightweight packaging grades. We also had two moulded pulp producers: Henry Moulded Products (USA) and Pulp-Tec (UK), both of whom were showing heavyweight roll cradles; I would also have added Huhtamaki to this latter list, had their stand not showed only their range of paper crockery rather than moulded products.

The vast majority of the exhibition is about converted prod ucts, not producers of raw material, so I will now describe some of the highlight paper products on show. Starting with paper straws, these made a major appearance last year, and were again well in evidence. Once again the Greek company Matrix Pack showed both spiral-wound paper straws and their bio-plastic straws (Cobio range). Dong Dao Group (China) had a beautiful giveaway presentation pack showing their full range of straws; they also performed a demonstration of quality, where they had a glass of cola in which their straw was shown against one they had purloined from a nearby fast-food takeaway – needless to say, the competitor was losing structure and disintegrating whereas the demonstration straw retained rigidity and usability. One interesting aside regarding this company is that while they spiral-wind the paper in China, the paper is purchased from BillerudKorsnäs (Germany) and glue from Henkel. The final straw to be exhibited was on the Kotkamills stand, and was shown in collaboration with a partner company Dolea (Finland). This straw was claimed to be very different from any other at the exhibition – it was not spiral-wound, but made from a single sheet of polymer-coated board, bent around a mandrel and heatsealed (rather than glued). Two claims were made: first, that the paper surface has better printability than any other on show; sec ond, that all other manufacturers use glue to gain their rigidity, and that as the glue softens and dissolves in the drink, the straw loses rigidity and usability – that is not the case with this product. This straw certainly had a different feel to any other on show, so it will be interesting to see how it fares.

In terms of heavy-weight paper packaging, corrugated man ufacturers do not tend to show at the event (although a whole stand of Pizza Boxes was a notable exception, shown by Ilke Ambalaj of Turkey). So I was delighted to see Flexi-Hex return. I featured their marvellous 3-D expandable paper packaging last year, when they demonstrated as part of the Start-Up Village; this year they had their own stand which was doing a roaring trade – they were certainly doing their best to put the UK on the map. (They also made a very special version of their product using product from Seaman Papers – see Figure 1.) The other notable maker in this field was one I have featured before: Dufaylite Developments, who make paper honeycomb, and whose stall featured the marvellous gorilla sculpture shown in Figure 2. (This company is the sole UK manufacturer of this product, and takes their raw material from DS Smith.) It is also worth noting that the Ecopack Stage used a set including seating all made from paper honeycomb.

As regards paper void-filling materials, ShredHouse (UK) had their standard range of coloured tissue products. Seaman Paper showed a lovely range of lightweight printed grades

Daven

suitable for void filling and wrapping; they also had transparent bags made of paper, which they are offering in a variety of sizes as alternatives to plastic (for example, as covers for clothing in dry cleaners). Also present was Walki who had their usual im pressive range of products, including dispersion and laminatecoated grades (using plastics from both fossil and bio- origin); they claimed that some of the products contained up to 5 coat ing layers.

To round up this overview of paper packaging grades being shown, PilloPak (Netherlands) had some delicate corrugated food-wrapping products on show. This company is part of the Palm Group, but does not use their paper (since they need foodcontact grade virgin paper, by the looks of it mainly greaseproof grades). Palletliners (UK) showed their interleaving sheets (brown paper coated in Manchester with an acrylic anti-slip agent) for stabilising loads on pallets. Finally, Weber Verpack ungen (Germany) showed their Sendbag e-commerce packaging bags – this is a major growth market, as became apparent from the seminars.

Before concluding, it is worth summarising a couple of the seminars I attended. Both were packed and I had to stand; this has never been the case before, which is surely a testament to the quality and topicality of the subjects covered. I arrived part way through a panel discussion at the Ecopack Stage involving Essity, Suez, The Packaging Oracle, Envirobuzz, and Van den Recycling. This involved a remarkably frank and open discussion on packaging and ‘greenwashing’. For example, panellists discussed how the description of carrier bags used in supermarkets as ‘single use’ was a misnomer, but was used by Government for its own purposes. Ironically, we are now using more plastic than ever before, and in a less recyclable form.

There was a general feeling that Government is not overly in terested in environmental issues, and mainly pays lip service. Therefore there needs to be greater collaboration between pack aging producers and users to ensure both better recyclability, and inclusion of higher levels of recycled content. Also, the packag ing industry in general needs to educate itself properly BEFORE it can educate the public. In particular the public needs to under stand that there is more carbon embedded in the product that in most packaging. That said, Essity noted that it needs to educate the consumer better on how to recycle LDPE.

A general bugbear was the amount of ‘fake news’ on environ mental issues. However, there was agreement that it is important not to be too critical of ‘greenwashing’ as this can put companies and consumers off. Also, it was noted that the UK press tends to be very negative in general, so companies often shy away from

making any statements on the issue.

The second seminar was held at the Industry Forum Stage, and given by Fred Lill, owner of Lil Packaging. This company claims to be the largest independent manufacturer of e-commerce packaging, and was keen to push their SURF agenda, covering:

S Sustainability

U Unboxing

R Reduced returns / shipping

F Faster fulfilment

Sustainability, as has already been highlighted, was un doubtedly the watchword of this exhibition, and it under pinned this whole presentation. Around half of the estimated 2.3 billion e-commerce parcels are sent in bubble-padded envelopes, most of which are landfilled because the bonded paper/plastic packaging is too difficult to separate to make recycling feasible. So (for Lil Packaging) use of plastic is to be avoided.

As regards the unboxing experience, a large proportion of buyers are known to take photos and post online. Does the ex perience have a ‘wow’ factor or not? Get this right and you (the retailer and packaging company) get a free advert; get it wrong and defects are laid bare for everyone to see.

Returns are a double whammy. In addition to lost profits, they can result in both damaged and defective products and un happy customers. To this end Amazon has developed a simple drop test regime for new packaging: 15 drops from knee height (460mm), and two from hip height (910mm). Pass this and the packaging is likely to prove acceptable for e-commerce appli cations.

Finally to fulfilment. Since wages represent the highest single cost in an e-packaging operation, improved rate of throughput is the biggest single arbiter of profitability. Design the packaging correctly and this has a major effect on the bottom line. In par ticular this involves less use of void-fill product, which is often a bugbear for the customer.

As Gavin Mounce (DS Smith) stated at the end of his slot, just before Fred Lill took to the stage, e-commerce is not a ‘one size fits all’ system. Ostensibly it is about cardboard box pack aging. But whereas bulk transport tends to involve lots of boxes of the same size packaged together correctly for ease of handling, e-commerce involves different-sized packages being thrown to gether and stored in a less than ideal way (maybe with boxes on their side, so subject to compression in a way they were not de signed to take). Get it right and the customer may sing your praises; get it wrong and you can be fairly sure they will let oth ers know.

Finally, two observations ... First, the number of stands from Turkish manufacturers was on the rise. What is it that the Turks see in this event, and this country, that UK manufactur ers do not? Why do these foreign manufacturers of paper and plastic (including bioplastic) bags and corrugated pizza boxes travel so far to take stands when UK manufacturers, who have sites only tens of miles away from the NEC, cannot be both ered? One only hopes, now that Brexit is upon us, that the UK manufacturers wake up to the importance of being seen and attempting to do business in a global market. Second, this ex hibition occurred at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, when the number of cases in the UK was still in the 20s; a noticeable trend was that no one was shaking hands – it was a sign of things to come!

Paper Formulation Technology is a Key Driver for Sustainable Packaging

Ricardo De Genova, Vice President, Strategic Marketing and R&D – Paper, Solenis

As interest groups raise awareness about plastic waste, govern ments around the world are starting to ban various types of plas tics, especially single-use packaging items. We all know the reasons behind this push: Plastic waste is filling our landfills and waterways and breaks down very slowly in the environment.

Ultimately, the impact will not be confined to items such as grocery bags and straws. Analysts expect the movement to ex tend to plastic bottles, disposable cups, food-service packaging and ready-meal containers. In fact, several major consumer brands, as well as a significant number of European retailers, have moved to reduce or eliminate their use of plastics in pack aging. And more will certainly follow.

Renewed Focus on Paper Materials

In this new paradigm, the pulp and paper industry has an op portunity to rise to the challenge of providing more environmen tally friendly fibre-based solutions to replace all those plastic straws, bottles, disposable cups and food containers. But before that happens, it’s important to address the foundational aspects of packaging production that will enable these products to be re placed with environmentally friendly alternatives, especially in food applications.

The Enabling Technologies

Almost anything, of course, is technically recyclable at a cost. But what makes a paper package most valuable in this new world is whether a material is repulpable. To this end, the goal is to re place paraffin wax or polyethylene (PE), fluorocarbon for grease barriers and the use of PE in cups and food-service applications. To achieve this goal, special formulations are required for paper packaging that act as a barrier to water, hot/cold liquids, greases and oils, moisture and water vapour – to name just a few. Suit able replacement formulations include barrier biowaxes used for different applications. Individual barrier products can also form a “system” consisting of one to three different coatings, each having different functions, with the final system design depend ing on the end producer’s requirements.

As the packaging industry moves toward fibre-based material for more sustainable solutions, there are some key issues to con sider when it comes to paper material formulation.

Is it repulpable? Repulpability enables creation of a segrega tion system for post-consumer cups that can be repulped, where the fibre is recovered and reused to produce paper and paper board products, perhaps even back into cups. The value of the fibre in these cups is very high, enough to make it economically feasible to develop the infrastructure needed to collect, segregate and recover these containers after use. Therefore, the barrier for mulation should enable repulpability. This is not typically eco nomically viable with PE-coated cups.

Is it compostable? The long-term objective, of course, is to recover the fibre. In the short term, if the material can be redi rected to composting facilities – as opposed to landfills – this helps with consumer messaging and is a step forward for brand owners and the environment as well. As a result, fibre material with compostable barrier formulations have a significant advan

tage over PE products, which cannot be composted. However, this is still secondary to repulpability.

How is the formulation produced? This is a key point on sus tainable sourcing, where many consumer brand owners have as pirational goals of using more than 50 percent sustainably sourced raw materials. Manufacturers of paper barrier coating formulations are seeking to minimise non-fossil fuel derived components and maximise renewably sourced raw materials. Some barrier solutions for example are 100% non-fossil based.

Is the barrier formulation functional? Barrier formulations must meet the functional requirements of the material being re placed. These requirements include resistance to oil, grease and water in applications like hamburger wrap, and resistance to staining for on-the-go coffee cups. Many paper-based packages are designed for consumer appeal and branding, and involve printing, sealing, gluing, flexibility and elasticity. As a result, paper barrier formulations must still allow the same packaging functionality while meeting sustainability goals.

Does the formulation facilitate manufacturing? One of the biggest advantages with some barrier coating formulations is that you can apply them using paper machine coaters, off-machine coaters or even flexo/reverse gravure printing presses. With some barrier coatings you can even convert the coated board into cups on existing cupmaking machines designed to work with PE. As a result, very little capital expenditure is required to utilise these barrier systems; paper manufacturers can run them now if they have a coater.

The good news is that awareness of fibre as a functional pack aging alternative continues to gain ground. For example, in the Next Gen Cup Challenge, a global consortium that includes major food industry players, issued a challenge in 2019 to “iden tify and commercialise existing and future solutions for the sin gle-use, hot and cold fibre cup system.” Solutions could include cup lids, sleeves and straws, as well as reusable and alternative delivery systems. Nearly 500 entrepreneurs, inventors and sci entists from more than 50 countries, including a team from Sole nis, responded enthusiastically with ideas and potential solutions. Solenis was recognised as one of 12 final winners and work to scale its proposed solution is underway.

Working together, the paper industry can make a difference in reducing plastic waste in the environment and supporting the circular economy in 2020 and beyond.

Solenis-NextGen-Cup Made with Solenis Barrier Coatings tech nology