International Conference on Science and Technology (ICSTIE) 2008 12-13 December 2008 Universiti Teknologi MARA, Pulau Pinang,

Malaysia

STATE-OF-THE-ART FOR PAPER RECYCLING

Misrawati Misman, * Sharifah Rafidah Wan Alwi, Zainuddin Abdul Manan
Process Systems Engineering Centre (PROSPECT) Faculty of Chemical & Natural Resources Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor, Malaysia *Corresponding author, Tel.: +60-7-553-5533, Fax: +60-7-558-1463 Email : shasha@fkkksa.utm.my Abstract. As the demand for materials continues to grow and the supply of natural resources continues to dwindle, recycling of materials has become more important in order to ensure sustainability. However, many materials can only be recycled a limited number of times due to physical degradation (paper and board), chemical degradation (plastics), or the presence of impurities (metals). This paper presents a review of solid recycling, focusing on the technology for paper recycling. It describes studies on pulp and paper recycling in five problem areas: paper and fiber sorting technologies, deinking and contaminant removal, pulp bleaching technologies, restoration of papermaking properties of recycled fibers, and performance characteristics of recycled paper. During the past two decades, numerous studies have been conducted on the potential of papermaking from recycled fibers. Most studies have shown that the strength properties of fibers and paper are reduced upon recycling. Recycled pulp is an important component of many paper products. Over 50 grades of waste paper have been identified. As a result, most waste paper has to be sorted, graded and baled before going to paper mills. The quality of the waste determines the end quality of the recycled paper. Mixing all these different type of quality paper will reduce the purity of the highest quality fibre. The recovered paper may contain fibers which may have been recycled once, twice, or perhaps several times. Wood fibers can only be recycled five to seven times before they become too short and brittle to be made into new paper. Previous studies showed two basic approaches to improve the properties of recycled pulp. In summary, the effect of recycling on pulp strength properties is a complicated process.

INTRODUCTION

Recycling is one of the best ways for citizens to make a direct impact on the environment. It helps the environment in a number of ways. Recycling also conserves the natural resources on Earth like plants, animals, minerals, fresh air and fresh water. Recycling saves space in the landfills for future generations of people. A sustainable future requires a high degree of recycling. However, many materials can only be recycled a limited number of times because of physical degradation (paper and board), chemical degradation (plastics), or impurities (several metals) [1]. Paper is an example of a valuable material that can be recycled. The raw material of paper making is wood pulp, which comprises vegetable, mineral and man made fibers. Most waste paper has to be sorted, graded and baled before going to the paper mills, and over 50 grades of waste paper have been identified [10]. The quality of the waste determines the end quality of the recycled paper. Mixing all these different type of quality paper will reduce the purity of the highest quality fiber. Paper recycling has been around as long as paper itself. Paper companies have always recognized the environmental and economic benefits of recycling. The paper industry is one of the largest water polluters in the world. Recycled paper reduces water pollution by 35%, reduces air pollution by 74%, and eliminates many toxic pollutants. In recent years, paper recycling has become popular with everyone as a way to help protect our environment by reusing our resources and conserving landfill space [11]. Most of the products made of paper only have a life span of a few days (e.g. newspapers) or a few weeks (e.g. packaging). Therefore, it is not striking that the thought of recycling has been a firm component of paper production for a long time. Most recovered paper is recycled back into paper and paperboard products. With a few exceptions, recovered paper is generally recycled into a grade similar to, or of lower quality than, the grade of the original product. For example, old corrugated boxes are used to make new recycled corrugated boxes. Recovered printing and writing paper can be used to make new recycled copy paper. Recovered paper contains some fibers which have become too small to be recycled into paper. The recovered paper may contain fibers which already have been recycled once, twice, or perhaps several times. Wood fibers can only be recycled five to seven times before they become too short and brittle to be made into new paper [11]. The recycled fiber can be used alone, or blended with new wood fiber called virgin fiber to give it extra strength or smoothness.

International Conference on Science and Technology (ICSTIE) 2008 12-13 December 2008 Universiti Teknologi MARA, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

PULP AND PAPER RECYCLING PROCESS The recycling process involves: re-pulping the wastepaper to reduce it to a fiber slurry; de-inking (separating ink from the cellulose fibers); and finally removal of the ink particles from the stock. The fiber slurry is then turned into paper using conventional papermaking machines. The source of recyclable fiber has been mainly newsprint and magazine waste. It is important to have a suitable combination of both long and short fiber to yield a pulp that will produce paper of acceptable quality. Magazine waste provides some longer fiber material (chemical wood) which improves the overall quality to newsprint (mechanical wood) furnish. The first stage in recycling wastepaper involves re-pulping to reduce the material to fiber slurry. This was achieved by stirring the waste in the presence of water and chemicals using a hydra pulp. During this process, fibers can be shortened as a result of breaking (cutting). The breaking of fibers is less likely to occur if the pulps are at a higher consistency as the action of fiber against fiber is gentler than fiber against metal pulp paddle. Ink detachment takes place simultaneously with re-pulping. The final task is to remove the separated ink particles from the stock. Different techniques are used to remove particles of differing size. Contraries of sizes from about 200mm diameter and upwards are removed by screening. The pulp is passed down the screen in a circular motion and accepted fiber passes through the mesh while rejects are collected at the bottom. One disadvantage of this method is that the slurry thickens towards the bottom of the basket and the efficiency drops to such an extent that only the top part of the screen is functional. Then, the pulp was clean by spinning it around in large cone-shaped cylinders. Heavy contaminants like staples are thrown to the outside of the cone and fall through the bottom of the cylinder. Lighter contaminants collect in the center of the cone and are removed. This process is called cleaning. Sometimes the pulp must undergo a pulp laundering operation called deinking to remove printing ink and sticky materials like glue residue and adhesives. Papermakers often use a combination of two deinking processes. Small particles of ink are rinsed from the pulp with water in a process called washing. Larger particles and stickiest are removed with air bubbles in another process called flotation. During flotation deinking, pulp is fed into a large vat called a flotation cell, where air and soap like chemicals call surfactants are injected into the pulp. The surfactants cause ink and stickiest to loosen from the pulp and stick to the air bubbles as they float to the top of the mixture. The inky air bubbles create foam or froth which is removed from the top, leaving the clean pulp behind. PULP AND PAPER RECYCLING TECHNOLOGIES The prime objective of recovered paper recycling is to utilize the fibers contained in pre or post-consumed recovered paper. Non-fibrous components, whether they derive from paper or are added during the processing or the use of paper, should be removed at the highest degree possible to avoid quality defects in the produced papers (specks, holes) and production process faults (e.g. wet web breaking) [9]. Using current technologies, it is more costly to manufacture products from waste materials compared to virgin materials. New technologies for converting waste to high quality products should be develop. The conventional recycling process has two drawbacks; it is more expensive and releases more carbon dioxide than manufacturing new paper. Consumers tend to pay more to purchase recycled paper, pay in their time to separate paper from other waste for recycling and may pay for the separate collection of recyclable material. In this paper, it describes studies on pulp and paper recycling in five problem areas: paper and fiber sorting technologies, deinking and contaminant removal, pulp bleaching technologies, restoration of papermaking properties of recycled fibers, and performance characteristics of recycled paper. (a) Paper and Fiber Sorting Technologies

Approximately half of wastepaper is generated by offices; the other half, by households. About 60% of the office wastepaper can be readily and reliably sorted into standard office paper grades. The remainder of office paper as well as household paper is mixed and contaminated. Successful recycling requires clean recovered paper. The paper must be keep free from contaminants, such as food, plastic, metal, and other trash, which make paper difficult to recycle. Recycling centers usually sort the paper by grade, or type of paper. At some level of mixing and contamination, manual methods of sorting paper become impractical. The technology necessary to recover paper from very mixed and contaminated sources has not been developed.

International Conference on Science and Technology (ICSTIE) 2008 12-13 December 2008 Universiti Teknologi MARA, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia (b) Deinking and Contaminant Removal

Wastepaper contains adhesives, fillers, inks, dyes, metal foils, plastics, and dirt. Current separation methods, which separate particles on the basis of size and density, are not adequate for recycled fibers. Many wastepapers contain contaminants that are similar in size and density to the fibers, such as nonwettable synthetic adhesives ("stickies"). New approaches are needed to separate these contaminants from recycled fiber. Biological processes can also be used to separate paper fibers from ink and other contaminants. Biological processes generally facilitate the removal of contaminants, but they can also affect fiber drainage, strength properties, yield, and slime accumulation [8]. (c) Pulp Bleaching Technologies

New environmental regulations are shifting production away from chlorine-based bleaching processes. Technologies designed to meet new environmental regulations for the bleaching of virgin fiber will likely be applied in recycling. However, the unique properties of recycled fibers will require considerable modification of these technologies as well as development of new technologies. Studies are addressing four fundamental obstacles to effective and environmentally safe bleaching of recycled fibers: feedstocks with mixed lignin content, photoreversion, color stripping, and physical aggregation of cellulose [8]. Selected bleaching agents can be used to determine the extent to which diffusion and mass transfer slow or impede the bleaching process. In practice, accessibility might be improved using chemical or biochemical treatments, some of which may overlap with treatments used to restore papermaking properties. (d) Restoration of Papermaking Properties of Recycled Fibers

The final stage of papermaking is drying the sheet at relatively high temperature, hardens the surface of fibers and stiffens their internal structure. These effects must be reversed if the fiber is to be reused for papermaking. Hardening of the surface limits inter fiber bonding, and internal stiffening reduces the conformability of the fibers. Both effects can limit the consolidation of the paper web. Recent literature indicates that the fundamental problem encountered when making paper from recycled fibers is loss of relative bonded area. Traditional methods of treating recycled fibers with alkali or mechanical beating have been only partially successful in restoring the original papermaking potential of the fibers. Changes in structure affect the void volumes within the fiber cell wall. Reestablishment of the original volumes is critical to restoring fiber flexibility and conformability. (e) Performance Characteristics of Recycled Paper

Papermakers are able to produce a remarkable array of products with very different properties by controlling the furnish, additives, and process. When postconsumer fiber is introduced into fine paper grades, control of one of these variables is lost: the furnish of recycled fiber is a mixture of various species pulped by various means. If the product is to remain consistent, the other variables-additives and process must be adjusted to compensate for changes in furnish. To obtain consistent products, papermakers must be able to characterize all essential performance aspects of a particular product or grade of paper. At present, characterizing subtle differences that affect paper performance challenges the limits of our technology. Changes in the surface energy of secondary fibers and the presence of contaminants can significantly affect the friction properties of the paper product. Reduction of the coefficient of friction can cause problems with roll-winding, printing, sheeting, and feeding of photocopiers. Neither the measurement of friction nor the mechanisms of its effect are well understood. PROPERTIES OF PAPER RECYCLING During the past two decades, numerous studies have been conducted on the potential of papermaking from recycled fibers. Most studies have shown that the strength properties of fibers and paper are reduced upon recycling. The effects of drying are presumed to be the main factors in reducing the strength properties of recycled fibers. Drying influences fiber strength, fiber swelling and bonding potential, which are the important factors to the strength of paper made from recycled fibers [3]. It seems that strength properties of recycled paper, such as tensile and bursting strengths, which are dependent on fiber bonding, are dramatically decreased with recycling. However, for strength properties of recycled

International Conference on Science and Technology (ICSTIE) 2008 12-13 December 2008 Universiti Teknologi MARA, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia paper where fiber bonding is not the main factor, such as tear strength, recycling seems to have a beneficial effect up to a certain level of recycling [14; 2]. The type of wood from which the pulp is derived and the lignin content of the original pulps also appear to have different effects on the changes in recycled pulp properties. The tear factor of recycled bleached kraft hardwood pulp was found to decrease, while that of bleached kraft softwood pulp increased with recycling [15]. Recovering the bonding potential of dried fibers is not as easy as those of virgin fibers (never dried fibers). Many attempts have been made to increase the suitability of recycled fibers for papermaking. These include various techniques of beating and chemical treatment of recycled fibers. There are four possible ways to recover the loss of bonding of recycled fibers: (1) beating and refining, (2) chemical treatment, (3) blending with virgin fibers, and (4) fiber fractionation [6]. Two basic approaches have been utilized to improve the properties of recycled pulp: mechanical treatments and chemical treatments. The approaches were designed to obtain a more fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of regeneration of the properties of recycled fibers and paper. The term mechanical treatment is used to indicate that no chemical treatments were involved; only beating of the pulp in a PFI mill [13]. Chemical treatment of pulp is another method to increase and regain the bonding potential. Various chemical treatments have been evaluated for both virgin and recycled pulps. Alkaline-based solutions are the most common chemicals utilized for improvement of the bonding potential of pulps [7; 4; 12; 5]. The influence of alkali treatment for the development of strength properties of the recycled pulp is apparently dependent on the type of alkali and reaction condition applied to the pulps. Most investigators have suggested that alkali treatment influences the swelling capacity of the fibers, which is a very important factor in terms of the bonding potential of the fibers. CONCLUSION It is well known that waste paper came from various sources such as newspapers, magazine papers, office and printing papers, and boxes. Each has different type of fiber quality. Mixing all these different type of quality paper will reduce the purity of the highest quality fiber. With proper segregation of paper types according to its existing fiber quality, different recycled paper quality can be produced with the right mixing instead of using virgin paper to top up the fiber quality. The basic recycling process is similar to the paper making process. Sorted wastepaper is cleaned by deinking and then broken down in large quantities to form a "porridge". The fibres are then refined and additives included to give particular qualities to the end paper. Virgin pulp is added at the end of the pulp making process. Two basic approaches have been utilized to improve the properties of recycled pulp: mechanical treatments and chemical treatments. For mechanically treated pulp, the tensile and bursting strength of the never dried pulp decreased with increasing consistency of beating. Tear strength increased with increasing beating consistency. The chemical treatments were selected to maximize the swelling effects on cellulose to improve bonding ability. The fact that the treatments did not alter and even reduced the strength properties, such as burst and tensile, seems to indicate that other factors are important to the bonding of recycled fibers. The production of recycled paper has less overall environmental impact than producing paper using all new material, when all production activities are taken into account. Recycled paper production does use less energy, less water and creates less pollution. However substantial upgrading of low quality waste, could mean that the environmental advantages of recycling are reduced or lost.
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International Conference on Science and Technology (ICSTIE) 2008 12-13 December 2008 Universiti Teknologi MARA, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

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