Mechanical Impact Treatment on Pulp fibers and Their Handsheet Properties

Alternative way of shaping fibers suitable for papermaking was introduced. Impact refining, which was done simply by hitting wet fibers with a metal weight vertically, was intended to keep the fibers from shortening and to cause mostly internal fibrillation. Virgin chemical pulp, its recycled one and OCC were used in the experiment. It was noticed from the experiment that impact refining on virgin chemical pulp kept the fiber length and increased bonding properties greatly. However, in the recycled fibers from the chemical pulp, fiber length and bonding properties were decreased. In OCC, which seems to contain fractions of semi-chemical pulp and mechanical pulp (GP), and which is recycled pulp from corrugated boxes, fiber length and bonding properties were decreased disastrously. We believe recycled cellulosic fibers (recycled chemical pulp and OCC in this case), which went through hornification, were less resistant to the mechanical impact than virgin chemical pulp. For virgin chemical pulp, impact refining allowed no significant fiber length shortening, high WRV, and high mechanical strength.