Iranian Journal of Wood and Paper Industries

Iranian Journal of Wood and Paper Industries

The possibility of manufacturing hygienic papers (fluff pulp) using spinning mill wastes

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors
Saeed Ismaeilimoghadam 1
Saeed Mahdavi 2
Mehdi Pourhashemi 3
Afsaneh Shahraki 4
1 University of Tehran
2 Wood and Forest Products Division, Research institute of Forest and Rangelands, Agricultural Research Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Tehran
3 Forest Research Division, Research Institute of Forests and Rangelands, Agricultural Research Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Tehran
4 University of Zabol
10.22034/ijwp.2024.2041147.1682
Abstract
Problem definition and objectives: Fluff pulp is a hygienic paper with high grammage, which is used in the production of hygienic products such as baby diapers. In this research, the possibility of manufacturing fluff pulp using spinning mill wastes was investigated.
Methodology: For this purpose, those part of spinning mill wastes that are based on cotton, were cleaned physically and after washing one time with cold water, they were subjected to a soda (15%) pulping process. Total yield, kappa number and ash content of the resulted pulp were measured based on the related standards. The bleaching step of the spinning mill wastes pulp was performed using a sodium hypochlorite-alkaline extraction- sodium hypochlorite (HEH) sequence. Tests like brightness, ash content, kappa number and the bleaching yield were done on the bleached pulps in order to evaluate the efficiency of bleaching. The bleached pulp then was refined by a laboratory refiner with varying refining rounds and for the fabrication of fluff pulps, hand-sheets with the basic weight of 750 g/m2 were manufactured. SR freeness, density, water retention value (WRV), the burst and tensile indices of refined pulps, were also evaluated.
Results: The results showed that the pulping soda process, the abovementioned bleaching sequence and refining of resulted pulp led to the production of fluff pulp with extra ordinary features. In this way the effect of refining intensity was quite obvious and the results showed that with the increase of refining rounds, SR freeness, density of fluff pulp and WRV were increased continuously. With the increase of refining intensity up to a certain value, the burst and tensile indices of the manufactured fluff pulp also increased, but further increase in refining intensity led to a decrease in these indices.
Conclusion: The results of this research showed that reusing the spinning mill waste for producing a hygienic product such as fluff pulp can be very beneficial both from an environmental point of view by helping to prevent deforestation and from a technical point of view.
Keywords
Fluff pulp
spinning mill wastes
cellulose
water retention value

Subjects

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Iranian Journal of Wood and Paper Industries
Volume 15, Issue 4
Winter 2025
Pages 427-436