Influence of Surfactants on Curtain Coater Runnability and Paper Quality, 2004 Coating and Graphic Arts Conference

The curtain coater technique has been a well established coating technology for nearly 20 years for speciality paper grades. More than 20 curtain coater installations are running worldwide and producing carbonless, thermal or inkjet papers. Because of the advantages of this coating technique, regarding reduction of web breaks, good coverage and coating colour savings, a strong effort in research has been made to utilize this technology also for graphic paper grades and board.

In comparison to other application techniques the addition of surfactants to the coating colour has a strong influence on curtain coater runnability and paper or board quality. This presentation will cover a broad overview of surfactants in curtain coating formulations with respect to laboratory screening of suitable additives using special measurement methods. Pilot trials were run with different surfactants resulting from the laboratory study. The influence of surfactants on the final print quality was also investigated.