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Life cycle carbon analysis of packaging products containing purposely grown nonwood fibers: A case study on the use of switchgrass pulp for linerboard and corrugating medium, TAPPI Journal March 2024
ABSTRACT: Sustainability is driving innovation in the pulp and paper industry to produce goods with lower carbon footprints. Although most of the efforts are currently focused on increasing energy efficiency or switching to renewable fuels, the attention toward alternative feedstocks has increased in recent years. Claims of nonwood fibers requiring lower use of chemicals and energy than wood fibers, along with negative consumer perceptions of tree felling, are helping purposely grown nonwoods to gain market share. The potential nonwood fiber environmental superiority over virgin or recycled wood fibers remains controversial and is often driven more by emotion and public perception rather than facts. This paper estimates the carbon footprint of corrugating medium and linerboard containing switchgrass pulp compared to analogous wood-based materials. The study includes a life cycle carbon analysis spanning from cradle to gate, which comprises stages for fiber production, pulping, papermaking, and corresponding transportation. Carbon footprints for virgin linerboard, recycled linerboard, virgin medium, and recycled medium were estimated at around 510, 620, 460, and 670 kg carbon dioxide equivalent per metric ton (kg CO2eq/t), respectively. Replacing 30% of the virgin or recycled material with switchgrass pulp translated into carbon footprint increases of around 60%, 45%, 62%, and 38%, respectively. Thus, for the proposed case study, the results suggest that switchgrass-based medium and linerboard can present a higher carbon footprint than products made from virgin and recycled wood fibers. The main driver is the production of nonwood mechanical pulp.This study was designed to mitigate part of the uncertainty around the environmental sustainability of medium and linerboard made from the selected purposely grown nonwood fibers.
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Factors affecting phosphorus uptake/dissolution during slaking and causticizing, TAPPI Journal March 2024
ABSTRACT: Hydroxide is regenerated in the recovery cycle of kraft pulp mills by the addition of lime (CaO) to green liquor. Phosphate in green liquor can react with the lime during slaking/causticizing. Total titratable alkali (TTA), sulfidity, the concentration of phosphate in the green liquor, temperature, and the liming ratio were all variables explored in this work to determine their influence on phosphorus uptake and dissolution. Experiments were also run in which the lime was slaked before being added to the green liquor to separate reactions with phosphate during slaking and reactions that occur during causticizing. Both reburnt lime and technical grade CaO were used. The experiment results indicate that phosphorus primarily reacts with slaked lime (Ca(OH)2), and that the final concentration of phosphate in the white liquor at the end of slaking and causticizing is nearly independent of the initial concentration of phosphorus and only mildly dependent on the carbonate concentration in the green liquor. There do appear to be differences in the rate at which phosphate reacts with reburnt lime and technical grade CaO, though the reason for this was not determined.
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Z-directional testing of paperboard in combined tensile and compression loading, TAPPI Journal May 2024
ABSTRACT: The out-of-plane properties of paperboard are important in several converting applications such as printing, sealing, creasing, and calendering. A juxtaposed tensile and compression curve in the z direction (ZD) will, however, appear to have a kink or discontinuity at 0 stress. The purpose of the present work is to capture the continuous transition between tension and compression and to increase the understanding of the complex ZD properties of paperboard by cyclic testing. In this attempt to unify the ZD tensile and compressive behavior of paperboard, samples were laminated to the testing platens using heat seal laminate film. The method for adhering the samples was compared to samples that were laminated and glued to the testing platens. The edge effects of the cutting method were evaluated in compression testing with samples not attached to the testing platens. The flat slope seen in the initial part of the pure compression curve disappeared when the samples were laminated to the testing platens. The flat slope was instead replaced by a continuous response in the transition across 0 N. The stiffness in the transition region resembled the response in tensile testing. When the testing is cycled, the material exhibits a history dependence. Starting the cycle in either compression or tensile will show an effect on the stiffness at the transition, as well as the compressive stiffness. However, the ultimate tensile strength is unaffected.
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Utilization of Areca leaf residues for sustainable production of greyboard, TAPPI Journal May 2024
ABSTRACT: This study primarily focused on the production of greyboard using waste materials from small scale industries, and specifically using Areca leaf waste fibers as a sustainable and environmentally friendly resource. Areca leaf waste fibers were employed as the primary raw material for greyboard manufacturing. The resulting greyboard exhibited commendable properties, including a tear index of 7.53 mN·m2/g, tensile index of 18.34·N·m/g (i.e., breaking length of 1870 m), burst factor of 9.24 (gf/cm2)/(g/m2) and stiffness factor of 33.1. This greyboard was created through a series of steps, including hydrothermal treatment of the material at 155°C and mechanical pulping refinement. The produced greyboard met the specifications outlined in the Indian Standard 2617 (1967) for greyboard. The key objective of this work was to leverage agricultural waste resources to develop a chemical-free greyboard, resulting in reduced waste disposal in open fields and a decrease in chemical usage within the greyboard manufacturing industry. Various characterization techniques, including field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), attenuated total reflection•Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) analysis, and X-ray diffraction (XRD), were used to assess the fiber quality, including aspects such as functional groups, morphology, and crystallinity for the materials used in the manufacturing process.
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Cationic emulsions of maleic anhydride derivatives of oleic and abietic acid for hydrophobic sizing of paper, TAPPI Journal 2020
ABSTRACT: Ordinary rosin sizing agents are mixtures of resin acids that include abietic acid and related compounds obtained from softwoods such as pine. Fatty acids, which are another byproduct of the kraft pulping of soft-wood species, also may have hydrophobic effects, but their use as sizing agents has seldom been considered. In the current study, abietic acid and oleic acid, in the absence of other components, were first modified by reaction with maleic acid anhydride. Then, the maleated derivatives (maleated oleic acid [MOA] and maleated abietic acid [MAA]), which were emulsified with cationic starch at the 1:1 and 3:2 ratio, respectively, were added to fiber furnish containing aluminum sulfate (papermaker’s alum). The prepared sheets were dried with a rotating drum on one side at 100°C at low pressure to cure the sizing agents. The chemical, optical strength, and absorption properties were measured. The presence of the sizing material was confirmed using time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS), and the retention of the sizing agent on fibers was supported by evidence of hydrocarbons on the paper surface. In addition to achieving sufficient water resistance features with MAA, a lesser hydrophobic character was obtained when using MOA. Compared to commercial applications, relatively large amounts of sizing agent were used to obtain a sufficient sizing degree. The MOA required 5% addition to achieve a similar sizing degree as MAA at the 2% level. The sizing treatments also resulted in substantial increases in tensile index value. Since cationic starch was used in the formulation of the sizing agents, the increase in tensile index may have been due to the influence of cationic starch. Contributions to paper strength from a combination of ionic complexation and mutual association of hydrophobic groups is also proposed. Depending on the amount of sizing agent, the yellowness increased, especially when sizing with MOA.
Journal articles
Examination of the potential to reduce water application rat
Examination of the potential to reduce water application rates for hardwood pulp logs stored in wet decks, TAPPI JOURNAL August 2016
Journal articles
Alkyl ketene dimer (AKD) sizing of paper under simplified tr
Alkyl ketene dimer (AKD) sizing of paper under simplified treatment conditions, TAPPI JOURNAL August 2016
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Multifunctional barrier coating systems created by multilayer curtain coating, TAPPI Journal November 2023
ABSTRACT: Functional coatings are applied to paper and paperboard substrates to provide resistance, or a barrier, against media such as oil and grease, water, water vapor, and oxygen, for applications such as food packaging, food service, and other non-food packaging. Today, there is increasing interest in developing recyclable and more sustainable approaches for producing these types of packages. This paper focuses on water-based barrier coatings (WBBC) for oil and grease resistance (OGR), water, moisture vapor transmission rate (MVTR), and oxygen barrier performance. The main goal is to create coated systems that can achieve more than one barrier property using multilayer curtain coating (MLCC) in a single application step. One advantage is in optimizing coating material cost with the use of functional chemistry in confined layers where performance is balanced within the coating layered structure. This allows simultaneous application of layers of different polymer types in one step to achieve the appropriate performance needs for a given barrier application. This paper provides working examples of using MLCC to create coating structures with multiple barrier properties in a single application pass. Barrier polymers studied include styrene butadiene, styrene acrylate, starch-containing emulsions, and polyvinyl alcohol. The paper also shows the effect of increasing the pigment volume concentration with platy clay or fine ground calcium carbonate on MVTR and OGR barrier properties.
Journal articles
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Surface energy considerations for offset printing of coated paper and paperboard, TAPPI Journal November 2023
ABSTRACT: Offset printing of coated paper involves the complex interactions of ink with a surface that is characterized by three major properties: roughness, porosity, and related pore network structure and surface chemistry (related to surface free energy [SFE]). The effects of porosity and roughness are relatively well understood and are documented in the literature, whereas the influence of surface chemistry is much less studied and therefore the focus of this paper. The key results shown include: i) Coating porosity has a negligible effect on SFE determination by contact angle using two fluids. ii) The chemistry of the latex polymer in the coating formulation dominates the influence on SFE compared to pigment, with any surface energy differences present in the pigment being almost completely masked by latex. iii) Wetting agent and corona treatment can impact water absorption rate and surface spreading of water, resulting in small differences in printability. Increasing the concentration of the surfactant on a coated surface indicates switching orientation of the surfactant molecules, giving a “step wise” printing result. When looking to improve offset printability by selection of different pigments, the variation in SFE is less important than variation in either surface roughness or porosity.
Journal articles
Magazine articles
Rice straw-based sustainable food packaging material with improved strength and barrier properties: Development and characterization, TAPPI Journal October 2023
ABSTRACT: Sustainable food packaging paper with high barrier and strength properties was developed with rice straw nanocellulose materials. Pulping and bleaching of rice straw were performed using an organosolv pulping and DED (D: chlorine dioxide bleaching; E: sodium hydroxide extraction) bleaching sequence. Bleached rice straw pulp was refined to 90°SR using a laboratory Valley beater. The laboratory handsheets were prepared using pulp slurry at 40°SR and 90°SR. The handsheets of cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) made of highly refined pulp (90°SR) were surface sized using alkyl ketene dimer (AKD) wax to increase the barrier properties of paper for selective food packaging applications. The paper samples were tested for mechanical, optical, surface, and barrier properties, including tensile index, burst index, tearing index, bending stiffness, elongation, porosity, apparent density, opacity, Cobb value, water vapor transmission rate (WVTR), oil and grease resistance, and contact angle. The refined pulp (90°SR) was analyzed using field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and it was observed that the morphology of the developed fibers changes to the nanoscale (<100 nm) for at least one dimension. The particle size distribution of the refined pulp using DLS analyzer also confirmed the cellulose fibers to near nanoscale. It was concluded that nanofibers were formed by a high degree of the mechanical pulp refining process and found to be much more economical than alternative processes in this direction. The sample handsheets of CNFs showed good strength and barrier properties. The barrier properties further increased when surface sizing was done using low-cost, nontoxic, and biodegradable AKD wax.