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Engineering the paper production by combined fiber fractionation and reinforcement with microfibrillated cellulose

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Abstract

Extending the use of mechanical pulp into non-traditional paper markets that requires moving towards producing high-bulk, porous paper grades with sufficient strength has gained intensive interest. This paper explores the potential of incorporating fiber fractionation with microfibril production to create high-bulk, porous, and strong enough material appropriate for a wide range of non-traditional mechanical pulp applications. Two different pressure-screen fractionation trials were conducted to fractionate a primary pulp into a long and coarse fiber stream (reject) and a fine and short fiber stream (accept). High-bulk, low-tensile sheets were obtained using the long and coarse reject fibers. The accept fibers were low-consistency refined at high specific energy to produce a microfibrilated cellulose (MFC) material and used to strengthen the high-bulk reject pulp sheets. The results illuminated that incorporating highly refined accept fibers having MFC-mimetic network into the paper structure could be a promising route to engineer the paper properties and extend the property range in comparison to low consistency refined whole pulp. Different series of handsheets were made and systematically studied by means of fiber length, fine percentage, bulk, tensile index, tensile energy absorption, Tear and burst indices, and freeness. Moreover, SEM micrographs were used to interpret the variations of paper properties. We believe that our results shed light on future mechanical pulp materials suitable for packaging and absorbency grades of paper that are high-bulk with sufficient strength for the specific application.

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Data availability

Data is available on request from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgments

This work was conducted as part of the Energy Reduction in Mechanical Pulping program. and the following partners: We greatly thank for the ongoing support of the following partners: AB Enzymes, Alberta Newsprint Company, BC Hydro, BC Institute of Technology, Canfor, Paper Excellence, FPInnovations, Holmen Paper, McMaster University, Millar Western, The University of British Columbia Pulp and Paper Centre, University of Victoria, West Fraser, and Valmet. We also gratefully acknowledge Quesnel River Pulp (West Fraser) for providing the pulp for these trials and UBC Bioimaging Facility for allowing us to use their resources. A special thanks to George Soong and Michael Bilek at UBC Pulp and Paper Centre for their support during this work.

Funding

This work was funded by a Collaborative Research and Development Grant provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) (Grant No. CRDPJ 538628-19).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Pulp and Paper Centre, University of British Columbia, 2385 East Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada

    Reanna Seifert, Samira Gharehkhani, Daniela Vargas Figueroa, Jordan Mercuur & James Olson

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada

    Samira Gharehkhani

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  1. Reanna Seifert
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  2. Samira Gharehkhani
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  5. James Olson
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Contributions

RS and SG contributed equally. All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by RS, DF, and JM. Data analysis was performed by RS, SG, and JO. The first draft of the manuscript was written by SG. The manuscript was critically reviewed by JO. The other authors also commented on previous versions of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Samira Gharehkhani or James Olson.

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Seifert, R., Gharehkhani, S., Vargas Figueroa, D. et al. Engineering the paper production by combined fiber fractionation and reinforcement with microfibrillated cellulose. Cellulose 30, 3201–3217 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-023-05053-7

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