Highly charged pulps: A sustainable way for tissue products, TAPPICon24

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Fully bleached fibers are commonly used in hygiene and tissue products due to their high brightness, high water absorption capacity and high softness, however, environmental challenges require sustainable alternatives. One interesting alternative is unbleached fibers as fewer processes and chemicals are needed when compared to fully bleached fibers. Oxygen delignification is a process that has been showing great potential for unbleached fibers, since it can increase the carboxylic acid groups in the fibers, leading to higher fiber swelling. Oxygen is a 
greener alternative to the delignification process and can bring some great benefits for the environment and , hopefully, also for the product properties.

The increase in fiber charges is maximized when high lignin content is present in the pulp which will impair the final pulp brightness. However, for some tissue products brightness properties are not so relevant as the water absorption properties, which makes oxygen delignified
fibers vert suitable and greener alternative.  Replacing fully bleached fibers by oxygen delignified fibers can reduce the environmental impact by lowering the carbon foot print from the bleaching process. bleached fibers by oxygen delignification bleached fiber by oxygen
delignified fibers can reduce the environmental impact by lowering the carbon footprint from the bleaching process.  The possibility of replacing fully bleached fibers with oxygen delignified fibers in tissue products was evaluated. High kappa number pulps were subjected to krafts cooking and extended oxygen delignification. Their water absorption properties were studied and compared with commercial fully bleached pulp. The water absorption properties were evaluated by water retention value, basket method and the Klemm
method. It was seen that a significant increase in the water retention value after an extended oxygen delignification when compared to the fully bleached pulps. The absorption capacity for unbleached and bleached unrefined pulps, were quite similar. The study showed interestingresults that reveal the potential replacement of fully bleached pulps in tissue applications by unbleached pulps with a high fiber charge content. 

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