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A pulp, narrated to be considered clean, renewable and biodegradable, is an important product. Such raw material is used on a daily basis in household paper, hygiene products, food packaging materials, cardboard, label paper and printing products, and can even be used as an adhesive in the food and medicine industries.
Simply put, logs are lignin and fiber structures. The mill's fiber production line of the wood log will extract the fibrous material from the log and at the same time it will extract Lignin and finally produce several types of pulp.
All wood for the production of pulp happens to be from cultivated forests and is from farms. When brought to harvest, the logs are first weighted and measured and later inspected. The lumber yard sends the logs to a debarking drum after which the logs are cut into smaller pieces in a chipper, making them fit for pulping. In addition to woodchips, pulp production also uses sawdust from saw and plywood mills.
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How is Wood Fiber Processed?
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Wood chips are cooked with an alkaline solution, white liquor, in the digester of the pulp mills to eliminate the lignin and isolate it within the cellulose fibers. During cooking, nearly half of the wood dissolves. The fibers are then washed, screened, and bleached.
After cooking, the dissolved wood and chemical mixture is called black liquor. Black liquor can be recovered and burned in a recovery boiler to generate biomass energy for pulp production. After washing and bleaching, the pulp is sent to a dryer, baled, and stored in warehouses for shipment to global markets. These dry bales are not only easy to handle and store but also improve transportation efficiency.
What are the Uses and the Reclamation of Chemicals in the Pulping Process?
Chemical recovery is integral to the chemical pulping cycle since it allows the re-utilization of the material constituents from the consumed cooking liquor. In this regard, for example, when producing coniferous pulp, black liquor is further processed to yield crude tall oil which can be used for biodiesel development. The concentrated black liquor is treated within a recovery boiler that combusts the black liquor in order to recover inorganic chemicals for use in future pulping processes.
Which Renewable Sources Does a Pulp Mill Use for Energy Generation?
Because of the characteristics of burning black liquor, contemporary mills are able to both produce large quantities of clean energy and enable energy-efficient production. This steam then drives generators which create electricity, with the electric steam operating at high pressure while the low pressure steam is used throughout the pulp mill in various operational processes.
