Preparation of Flexible Calcium Carbonate by In Situ Carbonation of the Chitin Fibrils and Its Use for Producing High Loaded Paper

Abstract

Flexible calcium carbonate (FCC) was developed as a functional papermaking filler for high loaded paper, which was a fiber-like shaped calcium carbonate produced from the in situ carbonation process on the cellulose micro-or nanofibril surface. Chitin is the second most abundant renewable material after cellulose. In this study, a chitin microfibril was utilized as the fibril core for making the FCC. Cellulose fibrils for the preparation of FCC were obtained by fibrillation of the TEMPO (2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl radical) treated wood fibers. The chitin fibril was obtained from the β-chitin from the born of squid fibrillated in water by grinding. Both fibrils were mixed with calcium oxide and underwent a carbonation process by the addition of carbon dioxide, thus the calcium carbonate attached on the fibrils to make FCC. When used in papermaking, both the FCC from chitin and cellulose gave a much higher bulk and tensile strength simultaneously than the conventional papermaking filler of ground calcium carbonate, while maintaining the other essential properties of paper. The FCC from chitin caused an even higher bulk and higher tensile strength than those of the FCC from cellulose in paper materials. Furthermore, the simple preparation method of the chitin FCC in comparison with the cellulose FCC may enable a reduction in the use of wood fibers, process energy, and the production cost of paper materials.

A Statistical Study of the Measurements of the Bekk Smoothness as well as Ash on Ignition and pH Value, of a 100gsm A4 Photocopy Paper

“…These include the ash content on ignition at 900 °C, pH, and electrical conductivity, of aqueous extracts. In this work, in an attempt to relate the surface property of smoothness Bekk of the paper sample to its inorganic fillers contained in the paper [10] as well as to its pH value we used analysis of variance (ANOVA) [11]. The purpose of this study was to investigate, using statistics, how the surface smoothness of a copy paper sample, which was coated, was affected by the pH value and the ash content on ignition at 900 °C value of the paper sample.…”