New Approach to Wet End Drainage/ Retention/ Formation Technology, 1996 Papermakers Conference Proceedings

The drive to improve sheet quality, increase paper machine productivity, and control rising furnish costs continues to escalate the demands placed on wet end chemistries. Making progress in one area often requires sacrifices in quality or performance in other important areas. A new approach to wet end drainage / retention / formation technology that offers performance alternatives to this paradigm is presented. This easy-to-use technology is based on the unique combination of two water-soluble products: a cationic, high molecular weight, dispersion or emulsion polymer and a modified lignosulfonate. This technology is effective in both acid and alkaline papermaking conditions. It may be customized in its application to provide drainage, retention, and formation benefits of most value to the papermaker. Laboratory and pilot paper machine data are presented comparing the performance of this new approach to conventional, single polymer drainage / retention aids and microparticle technology.