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.
Abitibi Consolidated Inc. was a Canadian pulp and paper company based in Montreal, Quebec. Abitibi-Consolidated was formed from the merger of Abitibi-Price Inc. and Stone Consolidated Corp. on May 29, 1997; the Company merged with Bowater in 2007 to form AbitibiBowater.
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.
Charles Fenerty was a Canadian inventor who invented the wood pulp process for papermaking, which was first adapted into the production of newsprint. Fenerty was also a poet, writing over 32 known poems.
Catalyst Paper Corporation is a pulp and paper company based in Richmond, British Columbia. It operates five pulp mills and paper mills, producing a combined 1.8 million tonnes of paper and 491,000 tonnes of market pulp annually. The mills mostly produce magazine paper and newsprint.
The Sartell Paper Mill, officially the Verso Paper Sartell Mill, was a paper mill located in the city of Sartell in the U.S. state of Minnesota, operating from 1905 until a disastrous explosion in 2012.
Norske Skog Skogn AS is a pulp mill and paper mill situated in Levanger, Norway, which produces newsprint. Situated on the Fiborgtangen peninsula in Skogn, the mill has three paper machines with a total annual capacity of 600,000 tonnes. Pulp is produced both from virgin fibers at an on-site thermomechanical pulp (TMP) mill and from recycled paper at a deinking (DIP) mill. Part of Norske Skog, it is the sole remaining newsprint mill in Norway.
Parenco B.V. is a paper mill located in Renkum, Netherlands, on the shore of the Rhine. The mill was established on the site of an older mill in 1912 by Van Gelder & Zonen. The company operates two paper machines PM1 and PM2. PM1 has a capacity of 265,000 tonnes per year and is used for the production of so-called SC-B paper for magazines and advertising brochures. The other machine, PM2, was idled in 2009 by its then owner due to the declining demand of newsprint paper. This machine will be converted and from mid-2016 will produce about 385,000 tons of packaging paper, intended for the production of corrugated board.
Grammage and basis weight, in the pulp and paper industry, are the area density of a paper product, that is, its mass per unit of area. Two ways of expressing grammage are commonly used:
The sulfite process produces wood pulp that is almost pure cellulose fibers by treating wood chips with solutions of sulfite and bisulfite ions. These chemicals cleave the bonds between the cellulose and lignin components of the lignocellulose. A variety of sulfite/bisulfite salts are used, including sodium (Na+), calcium (Ca2+), potassium (K+), magnesium (Mg2+), and ammonium (NH4+). The lignin is converted to lignosulfonates, which are soluble and can be separated from the cellulose fibers. For the production of cellulose, the sulfite process competes with the Kraft process which produces stronger fibers and is less environmentally costly.
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses, 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.
Deinking is the industrial process of removing printing ink from paperfibers of recycled paper to make deinked pulp.
The Great Lakes Paper Company was the operator of the largest and most modern pulp and paper manufacturing facility in the world. The Company employed over 4,000 in Northern Ontario, starting in 1924 as a pulp mill at Fort William, Ontario. Great Lakes had a highly developed social network within the company, including a children's Christmas party held at a local arena, and an annual picnic held at a local park, as well as many sports teams and other social groups. The company's working environment was enhanced by cultural diversity. For example under the Government of Canada's immigration policy, the "Close Relatives Scheme" resulted in over 400 Ukrainian refugees being employed as workers after World War II.
Friedrich Gottlob Keller was a German machinist and inventor, who invented the wood pulp process for use in papermaking. He is widely known for his wood-cut machine. Unlike Charles Fenerty, F.G. Keller took out a patent for his wood-cut invention.
The environmental effects 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.
The History of Papermaking in New York had its beginnings in the late 18th century, at a time when linen and cotton rags were the primary source of fibers in the manufacturing process. By 1850 there were more than 106 paper mills in New York, more than in any other state. A landmark in the history of papermaking in the United States was the installation of the first Fourdrinier machine in the country at a mill in Saugerties, New York, in 1827. Papermaking from ground-wood pulp began in New York in 1869, with the establishment of the Hudson River Pulp & Paper Company in Corinth and also with the work of Illustrious Remington and his sons in Watertown. The innovation and success of the Remingtons spurred further development of the industry in the state.
Snowflake Mill was a pulp mill and paper mill located in the US town of Snowflake, Arizona. The mill had two paper machines which produced 339,000 tonnes of newsprint and uncoated fine paper. It sourced its fiber from two deinking pulp lines. The mill had 293 employees as of 2014. Transport to and from the mill was carried out on the Apache Railway.
Khanna Paper Mills (KPM) is an Amritsar, India based business, which manufactures and supplies writing and printing papers, newsprint papers, and paperboards, and is the largest plant in the country using paper waste. It is the first paper mill in India to produce writing and printing paper from de-inked pulp. The paper is exported to SAARC countries, Africa, and the Middle East.
Mechanical pulping is the process in which wood is separated or defibrated mechanically into pulp for the paper industry.
