Extended oxygen delignification of high kappa softwood pulp in a flow-through reactor

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School of Chemical Technology | Doctoral thesis (article-based) | Defence date: 2015-03-13
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Date
2015
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
133
Series
Aalto University publication series DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS, 27/2015
Abstract
Oxygen delignification (O-delignification) is an important tool for improving yield, reducing lignin content of pulp and lowering the bleach chemical consumption in the pulp and paper industries. This process is designed after cooking to maximize the delignification rate in comparison to the final phase of Kraft cooking without sacrificing pulp quality. In order to improve the yield of O-delignification, combinations of different approaches were tested in this study. The first was to introduce a high kappa number Kraft pulp into the O-delignification stage to take advantage of the higher yield-delignification selectivity of O-delignification compared to that of the final stage of Kraft cooking. Another was to keep the alkali concentration at a relatively low but constant level throughout the O-delignification stage to minimize the cellulose degradation during delignification. This was achieved by using a flow-through reactor (FT-R) configuration. A high degree of delignification (> 76%) was achieved at low alkali but high concentration of dissolved oxygen. In addition, reaction kinetic models for delignification and cellulose degradation were proposed for FT-R oxygen delignification of high kappa number pulps to allow optimization of the delignification and selectivity of the oxygen stage to reach a target kappa number. Finally, to avoid excessive cellulose degradation at higher degree of delignification over 76%, the addition of different viscosity-preserving chemicals was examined while the temperature was raised to a higher level than that during conventional oxygen delignification (110-115 deg C). At these high temperature conditions, the condensed and nonphenolic lignin units which are not degraded at the conventional conditions can now be dissolved. An extraordinary high degree of delignification (> 83%) was obtained in the flow-through setup. Furthermore, the results were also compared to batch or multiple batch O-delignification of conventional softwood Kraft pulp (24 kappa) and high kappa softwood pulps (65 kappa) respectively.
Description
Julkaistu vain painettuna, saatavuus katso Bibid. Published only in printed form, availability see Bibid
Supervising professor
Sixta, Herbert, Prof., Aalto University, Department of Forest Products Technology, Finland
Thesis advisor
van Heiningen, Adriaan, Prof, Aalto University, Department of Forest Products Technology, Finland
Keywords
oxygen delignification, high kappa number pulp, high alkali cooking, flow through reactor, 31P NMR, residual lignin
Other note
Parts
  • [Publication 1]: Jafari V., Sixta H. and Van Heiningen A. Multistage oxygen delignification of high-kappa pine Kraft pulp with Peroxymonosulfate (Px), Holzforschung, 2013, 68, 497-504.
  • [Publication 2]: Jafari V., Sixta H. and Van Heiningen A. Kinetics of oxygen delignification of high-kappa pulp in a continuous flow-through reactor, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 2014, 53, 8385-8394.
    DOI: 10.1021/ie403336x View at publisher
  • [Publication 3]: Jafari V., Nieminen K., Sixta H. and Van Heiningen A. Comprehensive kinetic modeling study of carbohydrates and lignin removal of a high kappa number softwood Kraft pulp in a flow-through oxygen delignification, Cellulose.
  • [Publication 4]: Jafari V., Labafzadeh R. S., King A., Kilpeläinen I., Sixta H. and Van Heiningen A. Oxygen delignification of conventional and high alkali cooked softwood Kraft pulps, and study of the residual lignin structure, RSC Advances, 2014, 4, 17469-17477.
    DOI: 10.1039/C4RA00115J View at publisher
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