Developing a New Paper Grade, 1999 International Mechanical Pulping Conference Proceedings

Jukka Helminen

Metsä-Serla

Kirkniemi Mills

The Metsä-Serla Kirkniemi Mills have three production lines, which annually produce in all around 700 000 tons of LWC and coated fine paper. Many new and innovative products have been developed at the Kirkniemi Mills during more than 30-year history. In all cases, the starting point has been the need to find solutions to customer needs.

The Kirkniemi Mills have had several success stories, such as the first SC offset paper, gypsum based high brightness LWC paper, and a new ULWC paper, the first to use the filmcoating technique.

The newest production line, PM3, started up in 1996, bringing once again a new grade onto the market. This new generation double coated fine paper is the result of intense development work in cooperation with end users and of using special raw materials, furnishes and recipes and the latest technology. One of the key elements in the new product properties is the special aspen pulp, produced with pressure grinders.

This paper presents the most important factors that led to the creation of the new product, and explains how the goals were achieved in the development work. The paper also discusses issues relating to the aspen raw material and the grinding of aspen.