On-Line Measurement Of Bulk, Tensile, Brightness And Oven Dry Content Of Bleached Chemi-Thermomechanical Pulp Using NIR Spectroscopy, 2016 International Mechanical Pulping (IMPC) Conference 

Current mill practice to determine the pulp properties of bleached chemi-thermomechanical pulp is to prepare and test handsheets for properties of interest. While the use of handsheets is well established, tests require well trained technical staff and introduce a significant lag before test results can be acted upon. In this report, a prototype on-line near infrared (NIR) sensor which complements handsheet testing was trialed for 16 months at a BCTMP mill. The system consists of a probe installed on a conveyor belt between a slab press and a bale press and a cabinet located nearby. When a bale stops on the conveyor belt, the probe rises and comes into contact with the bale, taking an optical NIR spectral measurement and predicting its bulk, tensile strength, brightness and oven dried content. The data presented here covers a period of 100 days of real-time measurements that correlated with lab tests with an R2 greater than 0.75 for bulk, tensile and brightness properties. Bulk, tensile strength and brightness measurements had RMSEP values of 0.19 cm3/g, 3.994 Nm/g and 0.96 brightness points, respectively. Oven dry content measured from NIR correlated with the mill’s existing moisture measurement system. The on-line NIR sensor provides information in real-time and has the potential to be used to reach target grade properties more quickly, assist in the identification of inefficient chemical dousing, reduce the effect of operator bias during testing, allows for the prioritizing of lab tests and better segregation of final products according to customer needs.

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