Containerboard or corrugated case material (CCM) is a type of

paperboard Paperboard is a thick paper-based material. While there is no rigid differentiation between paper and paperboard, paperboard is generally thicker (usually over 0.30 mm, 0.012 in, or 12 Inch#equivalences, points) than paper and has certain ...

specially manufactured for the production of

corrugated board Corrugated fiberboard or corrugated cardboard is a type of packaging material consisting of a fluted corrugated sheet and one or two flat linerboards. It is made on "flute lamination machines" or "corrugators" and is used for making corrugated ...

. It includes both linerboard and corrugating medium (or fluting), the two types of paper that make up corrugated board. Since containerboard is made mainly out of natural unbleached wood fibers, it is generally brown, although its shade may vary depending on the type of

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...

pulping Pulp is a Lignocellulosic biomass, lignocellulosic fibrous material prepared by chemically or mechanically separating cellulose fibers from wood, fiber crops, Paper recycling, waste paper, or cotton paper, rags. Mixed with water and other chemica ...

process,

recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the p ...

rate and impurities content. For certain boxes that demand good presentation, white bleached pulp or coating is used on the top ply of the linerboard that goes outside the box.

Manufacture

Containerboard is made on modified paper machines that can handle higher

grammage 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: * Expressed in grams (g) per square meter (g/m2), regardle ...

s. The production of containerboard is the highest of all kinds of paper in the world. More than 100 million tons are produced annually. It is made in specialized paper machines from virgin as well as recycled fibers. Linerboard made of virgin pulp is called ''kraftliner'', whereas recycled linerboard is known as ''testliner.'' The corrugating medium may be recycled medium, called ''wellenstoff'' in Europe, or virgin, which is called semichemical medium for the type of pulp used in its production. The borders of these categories becomes blurred when both virgin and recycled fibers are used in making one product. At the end of the manufacturing process containerboard is cut into rolls comprising a continuous sheet of paper, which will later be unwound in the corrugator machine while making the corrugated board. A typical roll has a width of , a diameter of , and weighs around .

Manufacture

See also