Ji'An Group Co., China, has successfully started up its new Metso, Finland-Supplied PM 3 containerboard production line, followed by the startup of the line's curtain coating process. Both the new production line and curtain coater were supplied by Finland-based Metso, and were installed at the company's mill located in Haiyan County, Jiaxing City in Zhejian Province, China. The 7.25 m-wide PM 3 is the world's fastest coated board machine with a design speed of 1,200 m/min.
Metso's delivery included a complete containerboard line from headboxes to reel, with a 3-ply multi-fourdrinier forming section with a ValFormer top forming unit. The delivery also included a ValPress press section equipped with two straight nips, a dryer section with single- and double-fabric dryer groups, an OptiHard precalender, a ValSizer film size press, coating sections with two ValCoat Jet blade coating stations and an OptiLayer curtain coating station, a ValSoft soft calendar, and a new type of a ValReel reel. The comprehensive Metso automation system includes process, machine, and quality controls with headbox and moisturizer profilers and retention analyzers.
"The new PM 3 features an OptiLayer multilayer curtain coating unit that applies two coating layers on the web at the same time in a non-contact operation with no speed restrictions. Curtain coating is a coating method that gives a full coverage for brown base sheet. The uniform-coverage coating layer makes it possible to run the machine without expensive bleached fiber in furnish. This is a totally new tool for optimizing raw material costs," says Henri Vaittinen, Metso's Paper Technology manager.
The daily production capacity of PM 3 is approximately 1,900 metric tons of coated and uncoated white top testliner in the basis weight range of 130-280 gsm, mainly without virgin fiber.
Ji'An Group currently produces containerboard on four machines, of which three are Metso-supplied—the new PM 3, PM 1 (started up in 2008), and PM 2 (started up in 2006). The company's annual production capacity is around 1,650,000 metric tons.
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