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Incorporation of post-consumer pizza boxes in the recovered fiber stream: Impacts of grease on finished product quality, TAPPI Journal March 2021
ABSTRACT: Grease and cheese contamination of used pizza boxes has led to misunderstanding and controversy about the recyclability of pizza boxes. Some collection facilities accept pizza boxes while others do not. The purpose of this study is to determine whether typical grease or cheese contamination levels associated with pizza boxes impact finished product quality. Grease (from vegetable oil) and cheese are essentially hydrophobic and in sufficiently high concentration could interfere with interfiber bonding, resulting in paper strength loss.Findings from this study will be used to determine the viability of recycling pizza boxes at current and future con-centrations in old corrugated containers (OCC) recovered fiber streams. These findings will also be used to inform the acceptability of pizza boxes in the recycle stream and educate consumers about acceptable levels of grease or cheese residue found on these recycled boxes.
Journal articles
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Extension of a steady-state chlorine dioxide brightening model for Z-ECF bleaching of softwood kraft pulps, TAPPI Journal March 2021
ABSTRACT: Earlier studies developed a steady-state model to predict the brightness and/or bleach consumption during the chlorine dioxide brightening (D1) of softwood pulps produced by conventional elemental-chlorine-free (ECF) sequences. This model relates the chlorine dioxide consumed to the brightness gains predicated upon an asymptotic D1 brightness limit, an incoming D1 pulp brightness, and an equation parameter (ß11). The current investigation examines the application of this model to ECF sequences that use ozone delignification (Z-ECF). Literature D1 data from various Z-ECF bleaching studies, which investigated OZ, OD0/Z, and OZ/D0 delignification, were fitted to the model. The ß11 parameter was found to be linearly correlated to the entering kappa number. Interestingly, this linear relationship was found to be identical to the relationships observed when modeling the D1 stage for conventional ECF and chlorine-based bleach sequences. Subtle differences in D1 brightening response in the model among the various bleach sequences are reflected by incoming pulp brightness (at the same kappa number). The current model is used to illustrate how alterations to Z-ECF delignification affect D1 brightening and chlorine dioxide consumption.
Journal articles
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Development of converging-diverging multi-jet nozzles for molten smelt shattering in kraft recovery boilers, TAPPI Journal March 2021
ABSTRACT: The effective shattering of molten smelt is highly desired in recovery boiler systems. Ideally, shatter jet nozzle designs should: i) generate high shattering energy; ii) create a wide coverage; and iii) minimize steam consumption. This study proposes a novel converging-diverging multi-jet nozzle design to achieve these goals. A laboratory setup was established, and the nozzle performance was evaluated by generating jet pressure profiles from the measurement of a pitot tube array. The results show that the shatter jet strength is greater with a large throat diameter, high inlet pressure, and a short distance between the nozzle exit and impingement position. Increasing the number of orifices generates a wider jet coverage, and the distance between the orifices should be limited to avoid the formation of a low-pressure region between the orifices. The study also demonstrates that an optimized converging-diverging multi-jet nozzle significantly outperformed a conventional shatter jet nozzle by achieving higher energy and wider coverage while consuming less steam.
Journal articles
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Black liquor evaporator upgrades— life cycle cost analysis, TAPPI Journal March 2021
ABSTRACT: Black liquor evaporation is generally the most energy intensive unit operation in a pulp and paper manufacturing facility. The black liquor evaporators can represent a third or more of the total mill steam usage, followed by the paper machine and digester. Evaporator steam economy is defined as the unit mass of steam required to evaporate a unit mass of water from black liquor (i.e., lb/lb or kg/kg.) The economy is determined by the number of effects in an evaporator train and the system configuration. Older systems use four to six effects, most of which are the long tube vertical rising film type. Newer systems may be designed with seven or even eight effects using falling film and forced circulation crystallization technology for high product solids. The median age of all North American evaporator systems is 44 years. Roughly 25% of the current North American operating systems are 54 years or older. Older systems require more periodic maintenance and have a higher risk of unplanned downtime. Also, older systems have chronic issues with persistent liquor and vapor leaks, shell wall thinning, corrosion, and plugged tubes. Often these issues worsen to the point of requiring rebuild or replacement. When considering the age, technology, and lower efficiency of older systems, a major rebuild or new system may be warranted. The intent of this paper is to review the current state of black liquor evaporator systems in North America and present a basic method for determining whether a major rebuild or new installation is warrant-ed using total life cycle cost analysis (LCCA).
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Impact and feasibility of a membrane pre-concentration step in kraft recovery, TAPPI Journal May 2021
ABSTRACT: Emerging robust membrane systems can perform the first section of black liquor (BL) concentration by separating clean water from the black liquor stream using only mechanical pressure. By doing so, they can reduce the steam and energy required for BL concentration. Because of the high osmotic pressure of strong BL, a membrane system would not replace evaporators but would operate in series, performing the first section of BL concentration. In this work, we use a multi-effect evaporator (MEE) model to quantify the steam and energy savings associated with installing membrane systems of different sizes. When maintaining a constant BL solids throughput, we find that a pulp mill could reduce steam usage in its evaporators by up to 65%. Alternatively, a membrane system could also serve to increase BL throughput of the recovery train. We find that a membrane system capable of concentrating BL to 25% could double the BL solids throughput of a mill’s evaporators at the same steam usage. We also demonstrate that installing a membrane system before an MEE would minimally affect key operating parameters such as steam pressures and BL solids concentrations in each effect. This indicates that installing a membrane pre-concentration system would be nonintrusive to a mill’s operations.
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TAPPI Journal Summaries, Paper360º May/June 2021
TAPPI Journal Summaries, Paper360º May/June 2021
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Evaluation of rice straw for purification of lovastatin, TAPPI Journal November 2021
ABSTRACT: Cholesterol synthesis in the human body can be catalyzed by the coenzyme HMG-CoA reductase, and lovastatin, a key enzyme inhibitor, can reduce hypercholesterolemia. Lovastatin can be obtained as a secondary metabolite of Aspergillus terreus ATCC 20542. In this study, rice straw of lignocellulose was used in aeration and agitation bath fermentation in a 1-L flask, and a maximal crude extraction rate of 473 mg/L lovastatin was obtained. The crude extract was treated with silica gel (230•400 mesh) column chromatography. Ethyl acetate/ethanol (95%) was used as the mobile phase, and isolation was performed through elution with various ethyl acetate/ethanol ratios. The highest production rate of 153 mg/L was achieved with ethyl acetate/ethanol in a ratio of 8:2. The lovastatin gained from the crude extract was added to 12 fractions treated with 0.001 N alkali, and acetone was then added. After 24 h of recrystallization at 4°C, the extract underwent high-performance liquid chromatography. The purity had increased from 25% to 84.6%, and the recovery rate was 65.2%.
Journal articles
Magazine articles
TAPPI Journal Summaries, Paper360º November/December 2021
TAPPI Journal Summaries, Paper360º November/December 2021
Journal articles
Magazine articles
Control of malodorous gases emission from wet-end white water with hydrogen peroxide, TAPPI Journal October 2021
ABSTRACT: White water is highly recycled in the papermaking process so that its quality is easily deteriorated, thus producing lots of malodorous gases that are extremely harmful to human health and the environment. In this paper, the effect of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) on the control of malodorous gases released from white water was investigated. The results showed that the released amount of total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) decreased gradually with the increase of H2O2 dosage. Specifically, the TVOC emission reached the minimum as the H2O2 dosage was 1.5 mmol/L, and meanwhile, the hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and ammonia (NH3) were almost completely removed. It was also found that pH had little effect on the release of TVOC as H2O2 was added, but it evidently affect-ed the release of H2S and NH3. When the pH value of the white water was changed to 4.0 or 9.0, the emission of TVOC decreased slightly, while both H2S and NH3 were completely removed in both cases. The ferrous ions (Fe2+) and the copper ions (Cu2+) were found to promote the generation of hydroxyl radicals (HOœ) out of H2O2, enhancing its inhibition on the release of malodorous gases from white water. The Fe2+/H2O2 system and Cu2+/H2O2 system exhibited similar efficiency in inhibiting the TVOC releasing, whereas the Cu2+/H2O2 system showed better perfor-mance in removing H2S and NH3.
Journal articles
Magazine articles
Kraft recovery boiler operation with splash plate and/or beer can nozzles — a case study, TAPPI Journal Octobr 2021
ABSTRACT: In this work, we study a boiler experiencing upper furnace plugging and availability issues. To improve the situation and increase boiler availability, the liquor spray system was tuned/modified by testing different combinations of splash plate and beer can nozzles. While beer cans are typically used in smaller furnaces, in this work, we considered a furnace with a large floor area for the study. The tested cases included: 1) all splash plate nozzles (original operation), 2) all beer can nozzles, and 3) splash plate nozzles on front and back wall and beer cans nozzles on side walls. We found that operating according to Case 3 resulted in improved overall boiler operation as compared to the original condition of using splash plates only. Additionally, we carried out computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling of the three liquor spray cases to better understand the furnace behavior in detail for the tested cases. Model predictions show details of furnace combus-tion characteristics such as temperature, turbulence, gas flow pattern, carryover, and char bed behavior. Simulation using only the beer can nozzles resulted in a clear reduction of carryover. However, at the same time, the predicted lower furnace temperatures close to the char bed were in some locations very low, indicating unstable bed burning. Compared to the first two cases, the model predictions using a mixed setup of splash plate and beer can nozzles showed lower carryover, but without the excessive lowering of gas temperatures close to the char bed.