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AIR2-CT92-1499
Wood chemistry applied to the manufacture of paper pulp |
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Proposal No: | AIR2-CT92-1499 |
| Date Prepared: | September 1999 | |
| Source: | Final summary report December 1997 |
Summary
Three workshops have been organised by the partners in the Concerted Action. The topics corresponded to very active areas within the research programmes of the partners and were chosen in relation to the key issues identified. These topics were:
The reasons for organising these workshops included the promotion of information exchange amongst European wood chemistry scientists and the provision of a forum where PhD students involved in these research areas could share their approaches, experimental methods and results. In this respect the three workshops have been very successful, with 30 students having attended at least one. Another major achievement of the Concerted Action was to develop some 20 short period exchanges of personnel not only between the partners but also with other European laboratories active in wood chemistry, mainly in Spain, Portugal and Eastern European countries. The reason for these exchanges was to improve the dissemination of analytical techniques among the European groups and to give young scientists the international contacts necessary for the completion of their own work.
The Concerted Action was also involved in the organisation of international events: two European Workshops on Lignocellulosics and Pulps (EWLP) held in Stockholm, Sweden, and in Stresa, Italy; and the International Symposium on Wood and Pulping Chemistry held in Helsinki. These major international forums attracted hundreds of delegates from all over the world, demonstrating that the community of European wood and pulp chemists actually had a leading role in the development of new scientific concepts and processes in this field.
Introduction
The European pulping industry is leading the world pulping industry in terms of dynamism, constant innovation and technical performance. Most of the breakthroughs that have occurred over the last 30 years (oxygen, peroxide, peracid, ozone treatments, extended cooking, ECF and TCF bleaching) developed in Europe much faster than elsewhere. Most of them were the result of Research and Development efforts within the European pulp industry. Thus, it is not surprising to find in Europe many of the strongest research institutes and organisations in pulping and bleaching. Six of these, as listed below, were involved in this Concerted Action.
One purpose of this Action was to identify the technical challenges that the European pulping industry will have to meet at the start of the next millennium. Some of these have already been addressed by several groups but most often without any real collaboration. Some others are not being investigated yet and should be considered in the near future. Hence, another objective was to stimulate co-operation among the European wood chemistry groups on technical issues of importance for the future, and to create a network involving all the expertise needed to address these issues with maximum efficiency. The area that was considered here was pulp manufacture, including chemical pulping, high-yield pulping and some aspects of paper recycling.
In the chemical pulping sector the key issues relate to competitivity and environmental impact. Competitivity covers many aspects such as pulp yield, investment cost, reliability, raw material quality and cost. Environmental impact is linked to organic discharge in the water stream and to the release of malodorous compounds in the gas phase. Chemical pulps are generally of high quality, meaning that poor quality is not an issue here. However, some process changes made to solve previous problems may contribute to a decrease in quality. Quality does then become an issue. This has been the case with oxygen pulping or some TCF bleaching processes, for example.
High energy-demand and poor versatility are the major drawbacks of high-yield pulping processes. These are the questions that must be answered.
The problems encountered with pines, douglas fir and most of the hardwoods are examples of the high sensitivity of mechanical pulping to the nature of the wood.
The need to increase the incorporation of waste papers in paper products makes it necessary to find ways to improve the quality of the waste paper pulps. In fact, the increase in the recovery rate inevitably decreases the average quality of the recovered material, which then has to be incorporated in higher grades.
Most of these problems are of chemical nature. Of course, chemistry alone will not give all the answers, but it is the starting point. Technology will follow, as has always been the case in the past. It was not an easy task to summarise the problems that the industry faces as scientifically well-defined key issues. The group proposed a list of four key issues, for which the state-of-the-art was established. Workshops were organised to exchange results when possible on these issues and to stimulate co-operation. Exchanges of personnel were also arranged, especially for the young scientists involved in these research areas in the partner organisations and in other European groups. Finally, some major international events were used as opportunities to create a true European network of wood chemists.
Objectives
The general objectives of the Concerted Action were:
Project work
The issues in wood chemistry which are of strategic importance for the Pulp and Paper Industries in Europe have been identified during meetings among the partners which took place during the first year of the Concerted Action. A state-of-the-art report has been produced on each topic. These were:
A synthesis report entitled "Basic Chemistry in Pulping and Beaching Processes - Knowledge Gaps" was presented by the coordinator at the EU Conference on Pulp and Paper Research, held in Stockholm during October 1996. This report focuses on the key issues in the wood chemistry sector as defined by the partners, and details the research needs.
Workshops
Three workshops were organised. The topics were chosen in relation to the key issues identified and also because they corresponded to very active areas within the research programmes of the partners. These were as follows:
Workshop on analytical tools in wood chemistry, held at STFI, November 15-16, 1995. This two-day event attracted 50 participants including 13 PhD students and 9 participants from the pulp and paper industry. The emphasis of the workshop was on modern instrumental methods for the analysis of wood and pulp components. The topics covered were isolation, fractionation, separation and spectroscopic techniques. It was particularly interesting to note that the organisations involved in the Concerted Action were not concentrating all their efforts on the same techniques and that complementary methods already existed. It is believed that most of the progress which is going to appear in the pulp manufacturing procedures will to a great extent result from the capacity to better characterise the chemical components of wood and fibre.
Workshop on radical reactions in pulp bleaching, held at CTP, March 14-15, 1996. 40 participants attended the workshop, including 10 PhD students. Representatives from Spain (University of Catalunya at Terrassa) and Poland (Institute of Chemical Wood Technology in Poznan) were invited to attend. The workshop covered aspects of radical reactions from a purely theoretical, chemical point of view to their role in biochemistry and pulp-bleaching (radicals attacking lignin and cellulose during different bleaching processes). In conventional bleaching the chemical reagents are chlorine, caustic soda and chlorine dioxide. High brightness can be obtained without any loss in pulp strength. It was generally admitted that chlorine and chlorine dioxide were very specific to lignin and that cellulose was left intact. The situation has changed with the development of oxygen-based bleaching processes. Fully-bleached pulp can be prepared by a combination of oxygen, hydrogen peroxide and ozone treatments. However, cellulose is oxidised and partly-depolymerised during these treatments. Most of the degradation is due to the action of radical species. A better understanding of the ways these radicals are formed and cellulose is degraded is necessary to improve further the efficiency of TCF (Totally Chlorine-Free) bleaching. The workshop addressed this issue.
Workshop on chemistry influencing fibre structure and properties, held at KCL, February 6-7, 1997. This workshop attracted around 80 participants from ten institutes / universities and five industrial pulp groups. 18 papers were presented in a two-day programme. They covered the use of modern methods for analysing the structure of fibres (ESCA, inverse paper chromatography, mass spectroscopy), the behaviour of fibre components during kraft pulping or TCF bleaching, and the modification of recycled pulp fibre by chemical means. The success of this workshop demonstrated again that a seminar of this kind plays a unique role by promoting much-needed interaction between researchers. This contributes to the quality of the work and to a better co-ordination of the efforts made at different places.
Extended abstracts have been produced for each of these workshops and are available.
International events
Three major international events have been organised, either by the partners of the Concerted Action or with a strong support from the project:
The European Workshop on Lignocellulosics and Pulp (EWLP'94), organised by KTH/STFI in Stockholm on August 28-31, 1994. This attracted 168 participants from all over Europe and also from more remote areas such as the USA (3), Canada (4) and New Zealand (1). A significant financial contribution was made to facilitate the participation of scientists from Eastern Europe. The result was the presence of delegates from Latvia (8), Hungary (3), Russia (8), Slovakia (1) and Estonia (2).
The European Workshop on Lignocellulosics (EWLP'96), held in Stresa (Italy) on September 8-11, 1996. The Concerted Action acted as a sponsor and contributed to organisation and the scientific programme. Sponsoring consisted of financial support for the production of proceedings and for the participation of scientists from Eastern European Countries. The members of the Concerted Action were involved in the organising and scientific committees and presented 14 papers either as oral or poster presentations. With more than 150 registrants, some of them from the US, Canada, Japan and Brazil, this Workshop was very successful. All the European research groups active in wood chemistry contributed to this scientific forum. A major idea behind the organisation of this kind of public workshop is that, for many scientists and graduate students, the high costs of participating in conferences in North America are prohibitive. In addition, it appears that a substantial portion of the total research in the world related to wood chemistry is carried out in Europe. Proceedings have been produced.
The low registration cost and the support given by the Concerted Action made it possible to send to this meeting most of the graduate students involved in the research works presented in the programme. These events were very valuable opportunities to stimulate again the creation of a true European network in wood chemistry, spreading beyond the group of partners within the Concerted Action.
The International Symposium on Wood and Pulping Chemistry (ISWPC), organised by KCL, in Helsinki on June 6-8, 1995. It attracted over 480 participants - more than ever - from 35 countries. Aside from the host country Finland, best represented was Sweden, followed by the United States, Japan and Canada. It was pleasing to note also the participation of the Baltic states and Russia. This major event covered all the aspects in wood and pulping chemistry. The partners contributed to the scientific programme with 24 oral and poster presentations. Proceedings have been produced.
Conclusion
This Concerted Action has played a major role in increasing the links not only between the partner organisations but also between most of the European groups active in the wood chemistry field. It has permitted the organisation of workshops and conferences where key issues have been discussed and new analytical tools described, with an active participation of young scientists. Opportunity was offered to scientists from Eastern European countries to attend some of these events. Exchange of students and scientists for short periods has been encouraged which should have a positive impact on their research work and create essential international connections. The contribution of the partners has also been to prepare documents presenting the state of the art for each of the key issues identified by the group and showing the research needs, and to give more than 80 original scientific papers at the various meetings organised or sponsored by this Concerted Action. At the final concertation meeting it was decided to continue with the organisation of seminars covering the progress made in the areas of high importance in wood chemistry, preferably in conjunction with international events such as major conferences and workshops.
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