Tissue Track Featured at PaperWeek Canada

As part of its technical program at PaperWeek Canada 2020 in Montreal, PAPTAC organized a Tissue Track featuring two sessions.

Frank Cunnane, Cristini, described new instrumentation that has been developed that measures the permeability of tissue felts, their moisture content and their temperature, simultaneously and at the same spot on the felt.

PVOH continues to be widely used in many structured tissue manufacturing processes. Remi Charron, Buckman, said even TAD producers need to increase quality and perhaps PVOH has reached its limits when it comes to new technology. As producers push their limits, problems can arise. He noted that work at Buckman has shown that PVOH performance can be enhanced and tailored by using different coating combinations than the traditional PVOH film former and PAE adhesive. He said that this has been successfully demonstrated on lab, pilot and commercial-scale structured tissue assets. By using the right sub-components, PVOH no longer need be the Achilles Heel of the process.

The use of bamboo fiber in tissue production in China was discussed by Yonghao Ni, Univeristy of New Brunswick. He noted that there is increased interest in using bamboo pulp, even in North America. In China, many small-scale mills producing non-wood pulp were forced to close due to environmental regulations. About 600,000 metric tpy is still made, of which about 31 percent is bamboo pulp. However, overall bamboo pulp production has grown to about 2 million metric tpy because of the startup of large-scale bamboo pulp mills. The use of bamboo pulp in tissue has increased steadily. Now, about half of it goes to tissue. And, this figure is expected to rise in the next five years. Bamboo pulp can be used as the sole furnish or blended with other pulp. Ni said bamboo has high ash and silica content but new technology has overcome this issue. A typical bamboo tissue mill will have high-consistency (14 percent) refining followed by low-consistency (4.1 percent) refining. Bamboo has unique characteristics that can provide good bulk, softness and absorbency. Ni said interest in the use of bamboo pulp for tissue will rise because of sustainability and performance reasons.

To end up the session, Kristi Kobetich, Columbia Pulp, gave an update of the new non-wood pulp mill which recently opened in Washington (Paper360°, March/April 2019, p.26). Startup was October 2019. It is non-wood wetlap pulp. The mill also produces bio-polymer sand solid fiber (i.e., compost). The market challenge Columbia faces is a limited knowledge of the product in the market. There are no benchmarks, Kobetich noted. The pulp is called Columbia Gold and trials have shown good runnability. The company sees it as a supplemental fiber. Towel and tissue trials have been run successfully. For these products, fiber properties are similar to hardwood pulp. Minimal refining is needed to develop it.

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