In July last year, the consulting company Swiss Paper Consulting GmbH was founded Rapperswil-Jona, situated on the beautiful Lake Zurich.
We, Natacha Valera and Miroslav Dabic, have set ourselves the goal of achieving significant quality improvements, cost savings and process optimisations for the pulp and paper industry.
In the finishing department, the paper reel is prepared for the customer who expect following reel characteristics:
Sheet formation and drainage in the wire section are followed by further mechanical drainage in the press section. Here, the dry content of the paper or board web is increased from about 20 % to about 50 %, depending on the product and the dewatering capacity of the wire section. The following advantages result from the pressing process:
The energy consumption of the press section in relation to the dryer section is about 5%. Mechanical pressing therefore requires significantly less energy than drying.
The headbox is the first unit of a paper machine. Its main function is to distribute the mix evenly across the width of the wire section. During the forming process, the basic structure of the final paper produced is created. The driving forces for optimum sheet formation, cross and machine direction profiles are fibre orientation are:
As the paper mill process involves treatment of stock in different consistencies, stock chests are an essential part of the process. Their main tasks are:
Refining of pulp is one of the most important unit operations of the stock preparation system. In refining, the properties of pulp fibres are modified so that the strength of the fibre network improves, the paper surface can be made smoother or the paper formation improves. Achieving specific paper properties by means of refining process control requires a comprehensive know-how and know-why of the development of the paper properties as a function of refining energy while keeping an eye on energy consumption. We perform refiner diagnosis to review the current refiner performance and determine energy saving potentials and paper properties optimisations.
For adequate disintegration of fibres a deflaker will treat a pumpable fibre slurry further so that fibre flakes, fibre bundles or separated but still dry and stiff fibres are disintegrated into individual, wetted and flexible fibres. A deflaker diagnosis can lead to cost and quality optimisation.
As the paper mill process involves treatment of stock in different consistencies, stock chests are an essential part of the process. Their main tasks are:
The first stage in the stock preparation after bale handling is slushing of the baled pulps in the pulper. Energy consumption for slushing has to be considered. The aim should be to achieve adequate disintegration of fibres. In the case of virgin pulp, the residual flake content should be as low as possible, whereas in the case of waste paper it is often not desirable to achieve a high degree of deflaking, since undesirable components such as plastic adhesives are easier to remove from the process in a subsequent process unit if there are not shredded.