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Creping technology and its factors for tissue paper production: a review

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Abstract

Tissue products such as facial tissue and paper towels have been playing a crucial role in promoting hygiene and maintaining good health, since they are commonly available and widely used nowadays. The production of low-density tissue paper typically involves a key creping process that contains pressing and adhering the wet web onto a high-speed Yankee cylinder, followed by releasing the creped sheet with a stationary creping blade to form periodic micro-folds within the tissue structure. This paper discusses and reviews the mechanisms of tissue creping technology, as well as the factors that impact the creping process and tissue properties. These factors primarily include the dryness of the tissue web, creping rate, properties of the pulp raw material, Yankee coating, crepe doctor blade, and tissue drying machines. It is indicated that the creping process, as a multifaceted and integrated treatment for tissue production, can be significantly enhanced through the concerted efforts of the aforementioned factors to achieve greater creping efficiency. However, further endeavors are necessary to address the constraints stemming from the pilot experimental equipment and data, as well as modeling simulation, to enable a more comprehensive examination of the creping process and its mechanism. This review offers a practical overview and comprehensive understanding of the creping technology and its underlying factors for tissue production.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant: 2022M712379; 2021M692401), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant: 32101470), the Foundation (Grant: 2021KF37) of Guangxi Key Laboratory of Clean Pulp & Papermaking and Pollution Control, College of Light Industry and Food Engineering, Guangxi University, the Research Foundation from University of New Brunswick and Zhejiang Jingxing Paper Co., Ltd. The authors are also very pleased to thank the editor and reviewers for their valuable suggestions/comments to this paper, which greatly improve the whole quality of this paper.

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  1. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, TEDA, No. 9, 13th Street, Tianjin, 300457, P. R. China

    Tong Qin, Liqin Liu, Haibing Cao, Hongbin Liu & Xingye An

  2. Guangxi Key Laboratory of Clean Pulp & Papermaking and Pollution Control, College of Light Industry and Food Engineering, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, P. R. China

    Shuangxi Nie

  3. Zhejiang Jingxing Paper Co., Ltd, No. 1, Jingxing Industry Zone, Jingxing First Road, Caoqiao Street, Pinghu, 314214, Zhejiang Province, P. R. China

    Haibing Cao, Bin Lu & Zhengbai Cheng

  4. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, E3B 5A3, NB, Canada

    Liqin Liu & Xingye An

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  1. Tong Qin
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The manuscript was written through contributions of all current listed authors. All authors have given approval to the final version of the manuscript and recognized their contributions to this work. Special thanks to Dr. Liqin Liu for her great contribution to the guidance, modification, revision and final polishment of this reivew paper, she contribute greatly to the classification/summary of related literature and the revision of the final manuscript. Dr. Liqin Liu and Miss Tong Qin contribute equally to this review paper. The authors also thank Mr. Kuibin Dong and Miss Mengxin Hu for their contribution in the collection of some references in the first draft. Corresponding Authors: Liqin Liu: liuliqin@tust.edu.cn; Hongbin Liu: hongbin@tust.edu.cn; Xingye An: anxingye@tust.edu.cn, orcid. org/0000-0001-6920-3912.

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Qin, T., Liu, L., Cao, H. et al. Creping technology and its factors for tissue paper production: a review. Eur. J. Wood Prod. 81, 1075–1091 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00107-023-01947-2

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