Fabrication process

Of the paper

Student:
Claros Jorge Luis
Subject: Productive
Process

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 What is PAPER?
Paper is a material made up of a thin sheet made from cellulose pulp , a paste of ground plant
fibers suspended in water , generally bleached, and subsequently dried and hardened, to which
substances such as polypropylene or polyethylene are normally added with in order to provide you
with special features. The fibers that compose it are bonded together by hydrogen bonds .

Raw material:

It all starts by making cellulose pulp

* Cellulose Pulp: is the most widely used wood-based material for making paper . The
woods used for this purpose are known as pulpwoods, which are generally softwoods such
as spruce , pine , fir and larch , but also hardwoods such as eucalyptus and birch .

Wood is the main input in the production of cellulose, representing on average in

the world industry around 50% of the total cost of the product. From this perspective.
There are basically three axes of analysis to evaluate whether a type of wood is suitable
for cellulose production.

1)- Forest Economy: are all those factors that affect the cost of the wood placed at the
entrance to the Pulp Mill. In addition to the proximity of the forests to the Plant (transport
costs), the ideal is that the forest area necessary to supply the Plant's needs is as small as
possible. Two factors mainly intervene in this: the rotation age, that is, how many years it
takes for the trees to reach the cutting age; and the growth rate of trees, measured in solid
m3 of wood without bark per hectare of forest.

2)-Process Economy: are those characteristics of wood that make it easier (economical)
to separate cellulose fibers from the other components of wood, in addition to obtaining a
greater amount of cellulose fibers per m3 of wood.

3)-Biometric properties of cellulose: these are those attributes of the fibers that make
them more appropriate for the manufacture of one type of paper or another. Typically the
fiber length, its width, its wall thickness, its weight per unit length, etc.

It is separated into fibers and then beaten and mixed in water.

When the water drains, a sheet of interwoven fibers remains. For three
hundred million years, certain species of wasps have chewed plant
matter or cellulose to make paper, until a pulp is formed and they make
hives from this material.

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 The oldest preserved paper was made from rags around 150 BC. For about 500 years, the
art of papermaking was limited to China; In the year 610 it was introduced to Japan, and around
750 to Central Asia. Paper appeared in Egypt around 800 AD, but was not manufactured there until
900 AD. The Egyptians used a grass to make papyrus paper.

Plant From Which It Was Extracted:

The use of paper was introduced to Europe by the Arabs, and the first paper factory in Europe
was built in 1151 in Spain. This factory used old rags and linen.
Over the course of the following centuries, the technique spread to most European countries. The
introduction of the movable type printing press in the mid-15th century made book printing
enormously cheaper and provided a great stimulus to paper manufacturing. When the demand for
paper began to grow in the second half of the 18th century, rags became scarce and people looked
for other sources of fiber to make paper.
Inventors tested several types of fibers, including wood pulp, which came out best. Wood
fiber was the most available material for making paper and that is why at the end of the 19th century
most paper mills began making paper from trees.
At the same time, an attempt was made to reduce the cost of paper by developing a machine that
would replace the hand-moulding process in paper manufacturing.
The first efficient machine for this work was built in 1798 by the Frenchman Nicolás Louis Robert.
Robert's machine was improved by two British papermakers, brothers Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier,

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who in 1803 created the first of the machines that bear their name. The problem of making paper
from a cheap raw material was solved with the introduction of the wood-crushing process for
making pulp, around 1840, and the first chemical process for producing pulp, about ten years later.
The United States and Canada are the world's largest producers of paper, pulp and paper
products. Finland, Japan, the former Soviet Union and Sweden also produce significant quantities
of wood pulp and newsprint.

Paper Manufacturing Process

Preparation of the pasta

Blade forming: (manufacturing table)

Wet pressed

Drying

Coated

Paper finishing:
 Calendered
 winding
 chopped up

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 P
reparation of the pasta
Chop (shred) the raw material in water to form a suspension of individual fibers and

In papermaking, the raw material (straw, leaves, bark, rags, or other fibrous materials) is
placed in a tub or pan and beaten with a heavy mallet to separate the fibers.
During the first part of the operation, the material is washed with clean water to remove impurities,
but when the fibers have been sufficiently chopped they are kept in suspension without changing
the water in the tub. At that point, the liquid material, called primary pulp, is ready to make paper.
Disintegration:
Another process for obtaining the paste is disintegration ; When it comes in the form of sheets or
pressed cardboard and needs to be dissolved in water, it is introduced into a machine called Pulper.
Pulper: high-performance device where the disintegration operation is carried out. It is made
up of a cylindrical container, which has a propeller at the bottom, which agitates the sheets of pasta
that are introduced into it. By continuously rubbing the paste against the propeller, it is possible to
separate the fibers from which the bale of paste is formed, leaving a suspension in the water with a
consistency (percentage of dry matter) of between 6% and 12%. .

(PULPER)
Chipping:

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 Sometimes it is pulper, it does not achieve complete disintegration of the fibers, so another
machine called a despilter is used.
Said device is made up of three discs: two fixed outer ones provided with protruding spikes.
And another central disc with rotating movement at high speed. The movement of these discs
causes, due to violent collisions and passing through narrow ducts, the fibers to break,
achieving total individualization.

(DISTILLATOR)

Refined:

It is an operation in the preparation of pasta by which, through the action of mechanical work
and in the presence of an aqueous medium (water), the fibers and their physical-chemical structure
are modified.

The
device is called

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REFINO and is based on a fixed element (stator) and a rotating element (rotor), between which the
paste is passed.

Additive mix:

In the manufacture of paper it is essential that the final result has a series of characteristics
and properties suitable for the different use (writing paper, magazine paper, toilet paper...) for which
the paper is intended, and that fiber alone cannot be used. manages to obtain.

Refining is not enough, for this reason a series of non-fibrous products are added which
modify its properties and those of the paper obtained from it. We can group them into two families:

 Additives

 Auxiliaries

Additives

They are added in the manufacturing process to modify the characteristics of the paper, the most
used are:

Fillers and pigments: they are inorganic additives (mineral origin)

Fillers: are white mineral particles that are used as fillers in the spaces between fibers, in order to
improve some properties of the paper, such as opacity and whiteness, and increase printing quality.

Pigments: help to improve some properties of the paper (whiteness, opacity and printability.

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Dyes: they are basically used to obtain a paper of a certain color.

Optical brightening agents (ABO) . They are compounds that have the property of emitting a
bluish luminosity when they are in the presence of ultraviolet light, being optically whiter.

Resins to give wet strength: products that are added to help preserve the strength of the paper
when its use requires it to resist the action of water.

Binders: Products that are added so that the pigments are bonded together, and in turn, are fixed
to the surface of the paper.

Gluing products: These are those that are used to offer resistance to the penetration of liquids into
the paper, that is, their purpose is to achieve a paper that is more impermeable to water.

Products for dry strength: are those that are used to improve the strength of fiber-fiber joints
individually thanks to the creation of additional hydrogen bonds between the fibers without the need
for excessive refining.

These are some of the chemicals that are added to the pulp so that the finished paper has a
certain property. There are several.

Depuration:

Process necessary to keep track of the elements that become part of the sheet. It is always
necessary to keep a check so that in this way we obtain CLEAN PAPER, WITHOUT STAINS,
AVOIDING BREAKS AND WEAR IN MANUFACTURING.

After this
there is a
secondary
purification which
consists of
purifying the reject material that comes from the primary purification, to ensure not to lose too much
pulp. This process should be carried out 3 or 4 times to achieve greater performance and
effectiveness. When there are few negligible fibers, they are poured into the drain.

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 Leaf Formation

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 Once these necessary properties have been given to the paper pulp, the formation of the
sheet begins. It will try to transform a flow of this diluted paste into a thin sheet, constituting what will
later be the sheet of paper.

The input box is responsible for discharging the dough onto the manufacturing table, in the form of a
thin, wide and uniform sheet (previously it comes through circular pipes).

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The manufacturing table is responsible for forming the sheet and reducing part of the water
contained in the pasta.

Manufacturing table:

Its mission is to dehydrate the pulp (removing a large amount of water it contains) and to form
the sheet of paper.

A manufacturing table is made up of a series of elements that allow, each in its own way, to
carry out the sheet forming process conveniently. The pulp is sent through the lip of the headbox
and deposited on an endless cloth, which is responsible for transporting the fibers along the
manufacturing table.

During this journey, the sheet is consolidated by passing over the different elements,
performing the dewatering effect (elimination of water). Dewatering on the manufacturing table is
carried out in two stages:

1st stage: drainage by gravity: the water is eliminated by passing freely through the fabric
due to its own weight (force of gravity) and by the small depression created by some elements of
the table (foils, dewatering rollers, etc.). .) The fibers are retained on the top of the fabric.

2nd stage: vacuum dewatering: when it is no longer possible to remove water through the
force of gravity, vacuum elements are used that, by means of suction force, eliminate the water that
would have remained between the fibers. These elements are the “vacuofoils”, “aspirator boxes”
and “aspirator cylinders”.

Manufacturing table classification:

 Conventional flat table: In this type of table, the lower side of the pasta sheet, called
the fabric side, is supported on the fabric, while the upper side, called the felt side, is
free. The drainage of water occurs in only one direction, that is, downwards; Because
of this, the two sides of the paper tend to have a different configuration, with the fabric
side usually being rougher than the felt side.
 Double fabric table: In this type of table, both sides of the leaf are in contact with the
fabric. In this case it is possible to direct the water drain both upwards and downwards
with the help of suction boxes. In this way, a more symmetrical sheet is obtained with
both sides equal.

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 Wet Pressed
The drying procedure used immediately after the manufacturing table is called wet pressing
and can be considered as a continuation of the water removal process that had begun on the
manufacturing table.

In this section, the sheet is transported through a series of presses where much of the
water is removed and the sheet is consolidated (the fibers are forced into intimate contact) to
subsequently facilitate the drying operation, this process is carried out by passing the sheet in
contact with a felt between two rollers.

Felt is a fabric that rotates around the rollers of the presses and is responsible for transporting the
sheet thanks to its high absorption power. Along its journey it will be washed and dried for new
contact with the paper.

The rollers are responsible for applying pressure on the paper, which stops the water from coming
out.

Pressing phases

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One of the main objectives of pressing is the dewatering of the paper, which will depend on different
parameters (pressure, paper weight, speed, water content, etc.). The paper pressing process can
be divided into 4 well-differentiated phases.

Phase I- Saturation; In this phase, due to compression, air escapes from the pores of the paper,
which are occupied by water. The water fills the leaf until it is saturated, that is, it contains the
greatest amount of water that it is capable of accepting. In this phase the water pressure does not
increase and the water does not pass from the felt sheet.

Phase II-Comprehension and saturation of the felt; Upon reaching this phase, the sheet is
already saturated, and the increase in hydraulic pressure causes a movement of water from the
paper towards the felt, that is, the dewatering of the paper occurs. The felt begins to absorb water
until it is saturated.

Phase III-Expansion of the felt; In this phase the pressing expands until the pressure of the fluid in
the paper is nullified. Felt expands faster as the sheet removes as much water as possible.

Phase IV-Leaf Expansion; Here the paper and felt are decompressed and the paper is no longer
saturated. The hydraulic pressure becomes “negative”, that is, a more pronounced vacuum is
produced in the paper, which produces a return flow of water from the felt to the sheet. This last
behavior of the return of water to the paper should be avoided so that they must be fulfilled:

 A CLOSE CONTACT ZONE TO PRODUCE THE TIME TO RETURN TO THE WATER

 FAST SEPARATION OF PAPER AND FELT

Types of Press:

According to the way of facilitating dewatering, the following classification of presses can be
made:

Smooth presses

Suction presses

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shoe presses

Drying:

When the paper leaves the press section, its water content is usually 60%. From here it is not
possible to eliminate water by physical means but rather by applying HEAT. With this operation,
humidity is reduced to 5% water.

Drying mechanisms:

The transmission of heat used to heat the sheet in the drying operation occurs mainly in two ways:

 By conduction: It is carried out through the body (from molecule to molecule)

 By convection: It is the way heat spreads in fluids (liquids and gases). Fluids, when
heated, have less density than when they are cold, so they tend to rise.

Based on these heat transmission methods, a wide variety of drying equipment is available in paper
manufacturing:

 Air-through drying: by passing hot air through the porous structure of the paper. Tissue
paper, towel paper, and filter paper are used.
 Yankee drying: by contacting the paper on a large cylinder heated with steam. It is used in
carbon paper, glassine paper, bread wrapping paper.
 Air jet drying: by impacting a jet of hot air on the face of the paper. It is used to dry
coatings on many types of paper.
 Infrared drying: used for drying the coatings and pre-drying the sheet. It is widely used in
coated papers.
 Drying with heated cylinders (multi-cylinder dryer): general method used in drying any
type of paper. It consists of a series of cylinders of variable diameter and heated with
steam. The paper remains in contact with the upper cylinders on one side and with the

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 lower cylinders on the other, allowing both sides to dry. In this drying method, felts are used
(except in cardboard manufacturing) to keep the sheet in contact with the cylinders.

Paper Coating

The paper, when it finishes forming, has a surface that is not suitable for printing ink. To
improve its surface quality in order to be able to apply printing inks in an easy and effective way, a
very important operation is carried out, called COATING, which consists of applying a type of paint
that provides the sheet with the smoothness and shine necessary to that the ink adapts well to the
paper.

Paper has a porous structure due to the fibers. Therefore, when the paper comes into contact
with the printing ink, it tends to spread in all directions. To avoid this, it is necessary to achieve a
smooth and uniform surface.

Coating can be defined as the operation consisting of covering the surface of a paper
or cardboard with a material in a liquid state, giving the sheet a series of properties for
printing.

Calender

There are papers that come out of the paper machine and after going through a coating
process, they are already suitable for use in ink printing processes. However, many others require a
very perfect finish, so we resort to calendering, which with this operation gives shine and printing
properties to the paper.

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winding

Paper users need paper to arrive in a form appropriate to their needs. For example, a
printing company uses paper reels with sizes and diameters appropriate for its machines. The same
thing happens in the cutter.

A paper reel is a roll of paper with certain dimensions (diameter, width, paper length) and
certain characteristics.

The winder

It is the machine where the winding operation is carried out. It is based on a mechanical device
that transforms the mother coil into several smaller coils of appropriate diameter, size and
hardness.

Two drum windings

Winder with individual winding

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Cutter

The cutter is the machine in which the paper reels are transformed, through cuts, into a series
of formats or sheets with a specific length and width (although there is a standardization of formats,
these can be requested by clients in a very diverse, and may or may not be standardized).

Although the cutting process is carried out automatically, the operator is in charge of adjusting
the elements, checking correct operation and maintaining order and cleanliness of the facilities.

In the factory there must be a correct distribution of the different phases for a good
development of the cutting operation. The phases into which the operation is divided are:

 Unwinding
 Cutting in two phases
 Defect detection
 Transport
 Piled up
 counting operation

Uncoiling: this is done to be able to insert the paper into the cutter.

Cutting in two phases: a longitudinal cut is made (determines the final width) and a transversal cut
(determines the length).

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Defect detection: photoelectric cells are used to look for any flaws in the paper.

Transport: the sheets are sent to the stacking unit using conveyor belts.

Stacking: the sheets accumulate for packaging and subsequent shipping.

Counting operation: sheets are counted

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