Enzymatic Treatment of Recycled Pulp for Improved Inter-Fiber Bonding and Pulp Drainage, 18PaperCon

The importance of paper recycling has been well recognized for the saving of virgin wood and embodied energy in the recycled materials. Despite of the fact that recycled paper has been used in producing a variety of paper grades such as newsprint, tissue, corrugated board, and coated linerboard, several technical issues have yet to be resolved to make the recycled paper process more efficient and paper quality more comparable to that from virgin fibers. One of the major issues is the weak bonding between fibers or between different sheet plies because fibers have already gone through one or multiple prior paper making processes. In this study, treatment of recycled fibers with mixed enzyme preparations was investigated for modifying the fiber wall structure and surface morphology, in order to improve the inter-fiber bonding potential. The results show that at a minimal level of enzyme dosage, the internal bonding for recycled board grade can be improved by close to 30%.  In the meantime, the drainage of the pulp, measured as CSF, can be increased by 70mL CSF. Fiber surface topography by SEM has been conducted to reveal the true mechanisms behind enzyme effect.  It is expected that this enzyme process can help promote greener commercial practice in the traditional pulp and paper manufacturing process.

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