The pulp and paper industry comprises companies that use wood, specifically pulpwood, as raw material and produce pulp, paper, paperboard, and other cellulose-based products.
In the manufacturing process, pulp is introduced into a paper machine where it is shaped into a paper web and water is extracted through pressing and drying stages.
Pressing involves removing water from the sheet by applying force. This process employs a specialized type of felt, distinct from traditional felt, to absorb the water. In contrast, hand-made paper uses a blotter sheet for this purpose. Drying involves eliminating water from the paper sheets through air or heat. Historically, this was achieved by hanging the sheets to dry, similar to laundry. In modern papermaking, various heated drying mechanisms are employed, with the steam-heated can dryer being the most prevalent on paper machines. [1] [2] [3]
Papermaking as a craft is ancient, and for centuries it used various fibers, mainly grasses (cereal straws and others), or rags from old clothing made from them, in various preindustrial times and places. The commercial planting of domesticated mulberry trees to make pulp for papermaking is attested as early as the 6th century. [4] Due to advances in printing technology, the Chinese paper industry continued to grow under the Song dynasty to meet the rising demand for printed books. Demand for paper was also stimulated by the Song government, which needed a large supply of paper for printing paper money and exchange certificates. [5]
An example of an enterprising paper mill during the late phase of the preindustrial era is the mill by William Rittenhouse and sons at what is now preserved as Historic RittenhouseTown in Pennsylvania.
The first mechanised paper machine was installed at Frogmore Paper Mill, Apsley, Hertfordshire in 1803, followed by another in 1804. [6] The site operates currently as a museum. [7]
During the 19th and 20th centuries, the paper chemical technologies for making the pulp from wood rather than grasses underwent some major industrial-era upgrades, as first the soda pulping process and then the Kraft process helped reduce the unit cost of paper manufacture. This made paper newly abundant, and along with continual advancements in printing press technologies, as well as in transport technologies (for distribution), during these same centuries, led to greatly increased sales and circulation of newspapers, other periodicals, and books of every kind.
The pulp and paper industry has been criticized by environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council for unsustainable deforestation and clearcutting of old-growth forest. [8] The industry trend is to expand globally to countries like Russia, China and Indonesia with low wages and low environmental oversight. [9] According to Greenpeace, farmers in Central America illegally rip up vast tracts of native forest for cattle and soybean production without any consequences, [10] and companies who buy timber from private land owners contribute to massive deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest. [11] On the other hand, the situation is quite different where forest growth has been on the increase for a number of years. It is estimated for instance that since 1990 forests have grown in Europe by 17 million hectares, [12] which has been supported through the practice of sustainable forest management by the industry. In Sweden, for every tree that is felled, two are planted. [13]
The pulp and paper industry consumes a significant amount of water and energy and produces wastewater with a high concentration of chemical oxygen demand (COD), among other contaminants. [14] Recent studies underline coagulation as an appropriate pre-treatment of pulp and paper industrial wastewater and as a cost-effective solution for the removal of COD and the reduction of pressures on the aquatic environment. [15]
The industry is dominated by North American (United States and Canada), northern European (Finland, Sweden, and North-West Russia) and East Asian countries (such as East Siberian Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea). Australasia and Brazil also have significant pulp and paper enterprises. The industry also has a significant presence in a number of European countries including Germany, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland. The United States had been the world's leading producer of paper until it was overtaken by China in 2009. [16]
According to data from Statista, China produced 110 million metric tons in 2018 followed by the US with 72 million. [17]
According to statistic data by RISI, main producing countries of paper and paperboard, not including pulp, in the world are as follows: [18]
| Rank 2011 | Country | Production in 2011 (1,000 ton) | Share (2011) | Rank (2010) | Production in 2010 (1,000 ton) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  China | 99,300 | 24.9% | 1 | 92,599 |
| 2 |  United States | 75,083 | 18.8% | 2 | 75,849 |
| 3 |  Japan | 26,627 | 6.7% | 3 | 27,288 |
| 4 |  Germany | 22,698 | 5.7% | 4 | 23,122 |
| 5 |  Canada | 12,112 | 3.0% | 5 | 12,787 |
| 6 |  South Korea | 11,492 | 2.9% | 8 | 11,120 |
| 7 |  Finland | 11,329 | 2.8% | 6 | 11,789 |
| 8 |  Sweden | 11,298 | 2.8% | 7 | 11,410 |
| 9 |  Brazil | 10,159 | 2.5% | 10 | 9,796 |
| 10 |  Indonesia | 10,035 | 2.5% | 9 | 9,951 |
| World Total | 398,975 | 100.0% | 394,244 |
The world's main paper and paperboard company groups are as follows. (Some figures are estimates.): [19]
| Rank | Company group | Country | Production in 2015 (1,000 ton) | Rank by sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | International Paper | United States | 23,315 | 1 |
| 2 | Nine Dragon Paper Holdings | China | 12,630 | 2 |
| 3 | WestRock | United States | 12,487 | 4 |
| 4 | UPM | Finland | 9,771 | 5 |
| 5 | Stora Enso | Finland | 9,188 | 8 |
| 6 | Oji Paper Company | Japan | 9,115 | 3 |
| 7 | Sappi |  South Africa | 7,306 | 15 |
| 8 | Smurfit Kappa |  Ireland | 7,000 | 9 |
| 9 | DS Smith |  United Kingdom | 6,802 | 13 |
| 10 | Nippon Paper | Japan | 6,542 | 11 |
In 2008, the top 10 forest, paper and packaging products companies were, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers: [20]
| Rank | Company | Country | 2008 net sales (US$M) | 2008 net income (loss) (US$M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | International Paper |  United States | 24,829 | (1,282) |
| 2 | Kimberly-Clark | United States | 19,415 | 1,690 |
| 3 | SCA | Sweden | 16,965 (SEK) | 857 |
| 4 | Stora Enso | Finland | 16,227 | (991) |
| 5 | UPM | Finland | 13,920 | (263) |
| 6 | Oji Paper | Japan | 12,788 | 114 |
| 7 | Nippon Unipac | Japan | 11,753 | 55 |
| 8 | Smurfit Kappa | Ireland | 10,390 | (73) |
| 9 | Metsä Group | Finland | 9,335 | (313) |
| 10 | Mondi Group | UK/ South Africa | 9,466 | (310) |
Leading manufacturers of capital equipment with over $1 billion in annual revenue for the pulp and paper industry include:
Papermaking is the manufacture of paper and cardboard, which are used widely for printing, writing, and packaging, among many other purposes. Today almost all paper is made using industrial machinery, while handmade paper survives as a specialized craft and a medium for artistic expression.
Pulp is a fibrous lignocellulosic material prepared by chemically, semi-chemically or mechanically producing cellulosic fibers from wood, fiber crops, waste paper, or rags. Mixed with water and other chemicals or plant-based additives, pulp is the major raw material used in papermaking and the industrial production of other paper products.
A paper mill is a factory devoted to making paper from vegetable fibres such as wood pulp, old rags, and other ingredients. Prior to the invention and adoption of the Fourdrinier machine and other types of paper machine that use an endless belt, all paper in a paper mill was made by hand, one sheet at a time, by specialized laborers.
Paperboard is a thick paper-based material. While there is no rigid differentiation between paper and paperboard, paperboard is generally thicker than paper and has certain superior attributes such as foldability and rigidity. According to ISO standards, paperboard is a paper with a grammage above 250 g/m2, but there are exceptions. Paperboard can be single- or multi-ply.
A paper machine is an industrial machine which is used in the pulp and paper industry to create paper in large quantities at high speed. Modern paper-making machines are based on the principles of the Fourdrinier Machine, which uses a moving woven mesh to create a continuous paper web by filtering out the fibres held in a paper stock and producing a continuously moving wet mat of fibre. This is dried in the machine to produce a strong paper web.
The kraft process (also known as kraft pulping or sulfate process) is a process for conversion of wood into wood pulp, which consists of almost pure cellulose fibres, the main component of paper. The kraft process involves treatment of wood chips with a hot mixture of water, sodium hydroxide (NaOH), and sodium sulfide (Na2S), known as white liquor, that breaks the bonds that link lignin, hemicellulose, and cellulose. The technology entails several steps, both mechanical and chemical. It is the dominant method for producing paper. In some situations, the process has been controversial because kraft plants can release odorous products and in some situations produce substantial liquid wastes.
The recycling of paper is the process by which waste paper is turned into new paper products. It has a number of important benefits: It saves waste paper from occupying homes of people and producing methane as it breaks down. Because paper fibre contains carbon, recycling keeps the carbon locked up for longer and out of the atmosphere. Around two-thirds of all paper products in the US are now recovered and recycled, although it does not all become new paper. After repeated processing the fibres become too short for the production of new paper, which is why virgin fibre is frequently added to the pulp recipe.
Tissue paper or simply tissue is a lightweight paper or light crêpe paper. Tissue can be made from recycled paper pulp on a paper machine.
New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) are pollution control standards issued by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The term is used in the Clean Air Act Extension of 1970 (CAA) to refer to air pollution emission standards, and in the Clean Water Act (CWA) referring to standards for water pollution discharges of industrial wastewater to surface waters.
A pulp mill is a manufacturing facility that converts wood chips or other plant fiber sources into a thick fiber board which can be shipped to a paper mill for further processing. Pulp can be manufactured using mechanical, semi-chemical, or fully chemical methods. The finished product may be either bleached or non-bleached, depending on the customer requirements.
Coffee wastewater, also known as coffee effluent, is a byproduct of coffee processing. Its treatment and disposal is an important environmental consideration for coffee processing as wastewater is a form of industrial water pollution.
Printing and writing papers are paper grades used for newspapers, magazines, catalogs, books, notebooks, commercial printing, business forms, stationeries, copying and digital printing. About 1/3 of the total pulp and paper marked is printing and writing papers. The pulp or fibers used in printing and writing papers are extracted from wood using a chemical or mechanical process.
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through a fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed on the surface, followed by pressing and drying. Although paper was originally made in single sheets by hand, almost all is now made on large machines—some making reels 10 metres wide, running at 2,000 metres per minute and up to 600,000 tonnes a year. It is a versatile material with many uses, including printing, painting, graphics, signage, design, packaging, decorating, writing, and cleaning. It may also be used as filter paper, wallpaper, book endpaper, conservation paper, laminated worktops, toilet tissue, currency, and security paper, or in a number of industrial and construction processes.
Shandong Chenming Paper Holdings Limited, or known as Chenming Paper or Chenming Group, is engaged in the manufacture and sales of paper pulp, papermaking and power generation. It offers art paper, lightweight-coated paper, newspaper paper, paperboard paper, duplex press paper, white paperboard paper and writing paper. It is the largest papermaking enterprise in China. Based in Shouguang, Shandong, China, Chenming Paper is ranked among the top 50 paper producers worldwide by PWC. It is currently the largest paper producer in China by volumes sold. Chenming has approximately 15,700 employees from eight paper mills located at different provinces of China.
Tree-free paper, also known as no tree paper, offers an alternative to traditional wood-pulp paper due to its unique raw material composition. This type of paper is considered more eco-friendly especially when evaluating its entire life cycle.
Deinking is the industrial process of removing printing ink from paperfibers of recycled paper to make deinked pulp.
Paper is a thin nonwoven material traditionally made from a combination of milled plant and textile fibres. The first paper-like plant-based writing sheet was papyrus in Egypt, but the first true papermaking process was documented in China during the Eastern Han period, traditionally attributed to the court official Cai Lun. This plant-puree conglomerate produced by pulp mills and paper mills was used for writing, drawing, and money. During the 8th century, Chinese paper making spread to the Islamic world, replacing papyrus. By the 11th century, papermaking was brought to Europe, where it replaced animal-skin-based parchment and wood panels. By the 13th century, papermaking was refined with paper mills using waterwheels in Spain. Later improvements to the papermaking process came in 19th century Europe with the invention of wood-based papers.
The environmental impact of paper are significant, which has led to changes in industry and behaviour at both business and personal levels. With the use of modern technology such as the printing press and the highly mechanized harvesting of wood, disposable paper became a relatively cheap commodity, which led to a high level of consumption and waste. The rise in global environmental issues such as air and water pollution, climate change, overflowing landfills and clearcutting have all lead to increased government regulations. There is now a trend towards sustainability in the pulp and paper industry as it moves to reduce clear cutting, water use, greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel consumption and clean up its influence on local water supplies and air pollution.
Solenis, formerly Ashland Water Technologies, is an American manufacturer of specialty chemicals for the pulp, paper, oil and gas, chemical processing, mining, biorefining, power and municipal markets. Headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, in the United States, the company operates 71 manufacturing facilities located around the globe in 130 countries and more than 15,000 employees. Its product portfolio includes a variety of process, functional and water treatment chemistries, as well as monitoring and control systems.
Hemp paper is a paper variety consisting exclusively or to a large extent from pulp obtained from fibers of industrial hemp. The products are mainly specialty papers such as cigarette paper, banknotes and technical filter papers. Compared to wood pulp, hemp pulp offers a four to five times longer fibre, a significantly lower lignin fraction as well as a higher tear resistance and tensile strength. Because the paper industry's processes have been optimized for wood as the feedstock, production costs currently are much higher than for paper from wood.
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