Soda pulping is a chemical process for making

wood pulp Pulp is a lignocellulosic fibrous material prepared by chemically or mechanically separating cellulose fibers from wood, fiber crops, waste paper, or rags. Mixed with water and other chemical or plant-based additives, pulp is the major raw ...

with

sodium hydroxide Sodium hydroxide, also known as lye and caustic soda, is an inorganic compound with the formula NaOH. It is a white solid ionic compound consisting of sodium cations and hydroxide anions . Sodium hydroxide is a highly caustic base and al ...

as the cooking chemical. In the ''Soda-AQ'' process,

anthraquinone Anthraquinone, also called anthracenedione or dioxoanthracene, is an aromatic organic compound with formula . Isomers include various quinone derivatives. The term anthraquinone however refers to the isomer, 9,10-anthraquinone (IUPAC: 9,10-dioxoan ...

(AQ) may be used as a pulping additive to decrease the carbohydrate degradation. The soda process gives pulp with lower tear strength than other chemical pulping processes (

sulfite process 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 ...

and

kraft process 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 chip ...

), but has still limited use for easily-pulped materials like

straw Straw is an agricultural byproduct consisting of the dry stalks of cereal plants after the grain and chaff have been removed. It makes up about half of the yield of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat. It has a number ...

and some

hardwood Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes from ...

History

A precursor to the soda pulping process was the paper making process developed by Matthias Koops in 1801 which involved washing wood shavings in limewater, adding soda crystals and then boiling the mixture. Soda pulping was one of the first chemical pulping methods and was invented in 1851 by Burgess (United States) and Watts (England). In France in 1852 Coupier and Mellier patented a soda process based on a 1851 invention the patent of which preceded that of Watt and Burgess, which was filed in 1854. The first mill was started in 1866 in the USA. In 1865 they patented a method for recovery of the cooking liquors by incineration of the spent liquor. Many of the early soda mills converted to kraft mills once it was discovered.

Production

Around 5%-10% of

paper 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 fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distribu ...

production worldwide is produced from

agricultural crops A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. When the plants of the same kind are cultivated at one place on a large scale, it is called a crop. Most crops are cultivated in agriculture or hydroponics ...

, valuing agricultural paper production at between $5 billion and $10 billion. The most notable of these agricultural crops are wheat straw and

bagasse Bagasse ( ) is the dry pulpy fibrous material that remains after crushing sugarcane or sorghum stalks to extract their juice. It is used as a biofuel for the production of heat, energy, and electricity, and in the manufacture of pulp and building ...

. Using agricultural crops rather than wood has the added advantage of reducing deforestation. Due to the ease with which bagasse can be chemically pulped, bagasse requires less bleaching chemicals than wood pulp to achieve a bright, white sheet of paper. Most chemical bagasse pulp mills concentrate the spent reaction chemicals and combust them to power the paper-mills and to recover the reaction chemicals.

As solution for silicate scaling

Many

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns a ...

es,

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...

and some

tropical hardwood The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

s contain much

silicate In chemistry, a silicate is any member of a family of polyatomic anions consisting of silicon and oxygen, usually with the general formula , where . The family includes orthosilicate (), metasilicate (), and pyrosilicate (, ). The name is a ...

s that may cause sodium aluminum silicate scales. Moderate amounts of silicates can be controlled with purging lime mud or lime kiln ash. Silicate removal from green liquor in a soda mill can be achieved by lowering the pH of the liquor with CO₂-containing flue gases from the lime kiln or other sources. No commercial silicate removal system is available for the

, but it can handle the small amounts of silicates from northern woods..

References

{{Paper Papermaking Pulp and paper industry Industrial processes Chemical processes

History

Production

As solution for silicate scaling

See also

References