Improvement of Hardwood Pulp Yield in Continuous Kraft Cooking and Estimation of Pulp Yields Pulp yields of isothermal cooking with polysulfide and anthraquinone

The pulp yield was improved by about 4.5-5% when polysulfide (PS) and anthraquinone (AQ) were added to the kraft cooking liquor (white liquor). The exchange of the black liquor with fresh white liquor further increased the yield. The highest pulp yield was obtained when the PS cooking liquor containing 70% of total active alkali (AA) and 100% of AQ was used from the beginning of the reaction and the black liquor was exchanged with fresh white liquor containing the residual 30% of AA just after temperature reached $135^{\circ}C$. There was a good correlation between kraft pulp yields of a hardwood species and the ratios of the amount of xylose to glucose (X/G ratio), liberated by an acid hydrolysis of the pulps. However, the correlation was dependent on raw material wood species. Therefore, it is required in advance to establish a correlation between the yields and X/G ratios for raw material wood species of a target pulp in order to estimate pulp yield using X/G ratio. The X/G ratios of relatively high yield pulps showed higher values than those expected from the correlation. In a mill trial, the superiority of the PS-AQ isothermal cooking (ITC) process over the kraft ITC process was confirmed by examining X/G ratio of pulps obtained. The pulp yield in the PS-AQ ITC process was estimated at about 57.0%. This yield is very high, which indicates that reaction conditions of the PS-AQ ITC process are optimal.