SUMMARY:The properties of the materials combined in corrugated board are set to give the board its strength, flexibility and protection towards impact and pressure. The raw material is of course the single fibre but additives that enhance e.g. the wet and dry paper strength are also added. As the strength enhancing additives used today are most efficient between pH 4 and pH 7 there is a need for new types of additives that can be used under alkaline conditions. In the present report polyallylamine hydrochloride (PAH) and polyelectrolyte complexes (PEC) of PAH and polyacrylic acid (PAA) were investigated as strength enhancing additives. The components can be used under alkaline conditions and results showed that PAH alone or incorporated into a PEC gave different effects regarding strength properties of sheets from kraft pulps of different yields. The results showed that by treating the fibres with PEC´s of PAH and PAA it was possible to considerably increase the tensile properties, the Z-strength and the compression strength of papers made from the treated fibres. The results showed an increase of as much as 54 % to 180 % in dry Z-strength and 14 % to 53 % in compression strength, when using the PEC as an additive, indicating an increase in inter-fibre joint strength. It was also found that a heat treatment of the non-treated papers and of the papers from the PAH treated fibres gave a large improvement in tensile properties as well as Z-strength properties for the different pulps. For the PEC treated fibres it was not necessary to heat-treat the paper to achieve a higher dry strength. The molecular mechanism behind the large improvements is not identified in the present work but the problem is currently being investigated in the lab of the authors. ADDRESSES OF THE AUTHORS:Linda Gärdlund (linda.gardlund@mh.se):

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SUMMARY:The joint strength between single fibres and its influence on strength properties of papers was evaluated, taking into account the effect of pulp yield, ionic form of the carboxyl groups and drying. Fibre/fibre joint strength stayed almost constant for pulps with yield between 45 % and 50 %. Further increasing the pulp yield increased the joint strength until a maximum value was reached at a pulp yield of around 57 %, after which the joint strength decreased. Joint strength correlated well to paper tensile strength for never dried fibres, i.e. a lower joint strength resulted in lower sheet tensile index. The decrease in sheet tensile index was not as pronounced as the decrease in joint strength. Changing counter-ion from Na + to Ca2 + or H + did not affect fibre flexibility, although it reduced the joint strength as the molecular contact area decreased due to a reduced swelling upon changing the counter-ions. Drying the high yield pulp lowered both the joint strength and the sheet tensile index to the same extent. The sheet tensile index, for the low yield pulp, decreased much more than the fibre/fibre joint strength after drying the fibres. In conclusion, a combination of a lower fibre flexibility, resulting in fewer contact points between fibres in the sheet, and a lower joint strength after drying was responsible for the reduction in sheet tensile index. ADDRESSES OF THE AUTHORS:Jennie Forsström (jenfor@kth.se) and Lars Wågberg (wagberg@ptm.kth.se):

It has been shown, in the present investigation, that the two methods used to investigate the pore size distribution of unbleached chemical pulps, i.e. inverse size exclusion chromatography (ISEC) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), give different average pore radius for the pores inside the fibre wall. This is due to the way in which these experiments are performed and the sensitivity of the methods to different types of pores in the cell wall. It was also shown that the two methods gave different results when changing the pH and the ionic strength of the pulp suspension. The pore radius, as detected with ISEC, decreased with both increasing ionic strength and decreasing pH, indicating a loose structure of the exterior of the fibrillar network. However, the pore radius as detected with NMR, was virtually unaffected when increasing the ionic strength, indicating a very rigid structure of the interior of the fibre wall. Decreasing pH though, lead to a decrease in pore radius indicating that upon protonation of the carboxylic groups in the fibre wall, the electrostatic repulsion is diminished and the average pore radius decreases. The NMR technique was also used to study wet strength aid penetration into the fibre wall. It was shown that wet strength aids with a small molecular weight, penetrated the fibre wall, as detected by a decrease in pore radius. It was also shown that addition of different wet strength aids increased the tensile index of the sheet and decreased the fibre strength, measured as zero span-strength of the sheets.

Three-way data of the type batch  time  NIR wavelength were obtained by NIR spectroscopic multivariate monitoring of an organic synthesis as a batch process. The model synthesis, an ester synthesis, was carried out as an experimental design. Unexpected technical problems caused a blocking effect that forced a modification of the design. After preprocessing of a reduced three-way array, the spectral data in the three-way array were subjected to parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC). The loadings from this analysis could be interpreted and explained as a function of the synthesis studied. For the spectral interpretation, spectra of pure chemicals were needed. The paper is an illustration of what can be done with three-way modeling in order to increase the understanding of a reaction, and it attempts to show how the results can be interpreted and presented. The data sets are available from the authors.