Enhancing dewatering of thermo-mechanical pulp (TMP) based papermaking through enzymatic treatment

Abstract

The aim of this work was to improve the dewatering characteristics of thermo-mechanical pulp (TMP) through enzymatic treatment without any significant reduction of the quality of the end product. The cellulose and hemicellulose content of TMP was altered by means of enzymatic treatments using different purified cellulases and hemicellulases as well as commercial enzyme preparations, in order to clarify the target carbohydrate components affecting the dewatering of TMP. The effects of enzymatic treatments on the properties of the pulp as well as its forming, pressing and drying were studied by lab scale measurements. An increased dewatering rate of TMP was observed in initial drainage, wet pressing and drying laboratory experiments, as a result of various enzymatic treatments. Interestingly, both cellulose and galactoglucomannan components in TMP were found to affect the dewatering properties of the pulp, and a greatest improvement in dewatering could be obtained with a combined treatment with an endoglucanase type of cellulase and mannanase.

Molded pulp products for sustainable packaging: Production rate challenges and product opportunities

“…In cases where the main resistance to dewatering involves very slender cellulosic fine matter, i.e. essentially fragments resembling nanofibrillated cellulose, then cellulase enzyme treatment may be a promising strategy to achieve gains in drainage (Oksanen et al 2011;Singh and Bhardwaj 2011;Piyush et al 2013). The idea is to employ a sufficiently effective treatment such that it essentially dissolves the targeted very fine cellulosic material, while its action on the much larger and thicker cellulosic materials is not enough to cause serious damage.…”

Extensible cellulosic fibre-polyurethane composites prepared via the papermaking pathway

“…Due to drying shrinkage and the addition of PU, the basis weights of the handsheets were in the range of 61 g/m 2 to 113 g/m 2 . High basis weight (300 g/m 2 ), A4-sized sheets for 3D forming were prepared using the "Juupeli" sheet former developed by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (Jyväskylä, Finland) and used in several studies (inter alia Oksanen et al 2011). The types of the handsheets prepared in this study, their grammages, and densities are summarized in Table 1.…”

Optimization of Burkholderia sp. ZYB002 lipase production for pitch control in thermomechanical pulping (TMP) processes

“…Biopulping with living fungi is in discussion (Masarin and Ferraz 2008;Vicentim et al 2009), such as the treatment of bleached pulp with cellobiohydrolyze (Suchy et al 2009) or paper strength improvement by xyloglucan addition (Ahrenstedt et al 2008). Biotechnologic approaches to improve the thermomechanical pulping process (TMP) and chemithermomechanical pulping (CTMP) production play a particularly important role in this regard, such as the activation of TMP by laccases (Lähdetie et al 2009), to reduce specific refining energy in mechanical pulping by enzymes (Hart et al 2009), mannanase and endoglucanase treatment of CTMP (Strey et al 2009), or enhancing the dewatering of TMP-based papermaking through enzymatic treatment (Oksanen et al 2011), to mention a few.…”