Making Paper Using Less Water and Energy, 1999 Papermakers Conference Proceedings

Markku Karlsson
In the past two decades the pulp and paper industry has shown great progress in its ability to reduce its impact on the environment. A major contributor to this has been the reduction of water usage through improvements in existing external effluent treatment processes, and development of new internal processes incorporating increased re-use of process waters. Another major contributor is the reduction of energy, made possible by emerging new drying technologies such as impulse drying and impingement drying. This article describes ways of reducing fresh water consumption that offers effective solutions for integrated pulp and paper plants. It also presents a case example which compares energy efficiency of different drying technologies using ‘Total Site Integration,’ a tool developed to calculate energy usage and balance for the entire paper mill site. Lastly, the article projects a future scenario for water and energy usage in paper mills in which is described a ‘Clean Technology Approach,’ or proactive response to today’s stringent environmental regulations.