Observations on Using Wheat Straw Pulp on Papermachines, 2006 Engineering, Pulping, and Environmental Conference

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Wheat straw makes up a large part of the lignocellulosic biomass in North America. However a minimal amount of this biomass is in close proximity to pulp and paper mills. Puling of wheat straw has been carried on for centuries. It has not been efficiently pulped in modern mils for a variety of reasons. One of which is that the straw is over cooked thereby producing detrimental pulp qualities. Other reasons are conveyance of straw and recovery of liquor.

Recently a technique has been developed to pulp wheat straw to a quality significant enough to run wheat straw pulp on US paper machines. Not just as a filler but as a major portion of the furnish. This pulp has been used in a series of commercial paperboard and molded pulp runs.

Wheat straw from eastern Washington was preprocessed in a tub grinder and blown into supersacks. Forty kilograms batches of straw were pulped then refined through a Sprout Waldron refiner to a CSF of 400 mls. Portions were screened through a slotted pressure screen. Pulps produced by this method were used in both pilot and commercial papermachine runs.