물질 보류 : 안료 코팅 처리를 위한 새로운 시도

Material Retention: A Novel Approach to Performance of Pigment Coating Colors

Cost efficiency is today the primary requirement in the paper and board industry. This has led therefore, to a greater preponderance of products with specifically designed functionality to take account of current industry needs. Continually increasing machine coating speeds together with these new coating colour components have put more emphasis on the importance of the correct rheology and water retention of the coating colours to achieve good runnability and end product quality. In the coating process, some penetration of the aqueous phase, to the base paper or board must occur to anchor the pre-coating to the base or the topcoat to the pre-coat. The aqueous phase acts as a vehicle not only for the binder, but also for the other components. If this water or material penetration is not controlled, there will be excessive material shift from the coating colour to the base, before immobilization of the coating colour will stop this migration. This can result in poor machine runnability, unstable system and uneven coating layer, impacting print quality. The performance of rheology modifiers or thickeners on the coating color have tended to be evaluated by the term, "water retention". This simple term is not sufficient to explain their performance changes during coating. In this paper we are introducing a new concept of "material retention", which takes note of the total composition of the coating colour material and therefore goes beyond the concept of only water retention. Controlled material retention leads to a more uniform z-directional distribution of coating colour components. The changes that can be made to z-directional uniformity will have positive effects on print quality as measured by surface strength, ink setting properties, print gloss, mottling tendency. Optical properties, such as light scattering, whiteness and light fastness delivery should also be improved. Additionally, controlled material retention minimizes changes to the coating colour with time in re-circulation giving less fluctuation in quality in the machine direction since it more closely resembles fresh coating for longer periods. Use of the material retention concept enables paper and board producers to have more stable runnability (i.e. lower process costs), improved end product quality (i.e. better performance of used chemicals) and/or optimized use of coating colour components (i.e. lower total formulation cost)