The variety of analysis and debate at Tissue World Americas 2014 was impressive. Here, TW provides a brief taster of just some of the themes. A TW report.
GUILLAUME BOUVIER, VP OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY, CASCADES TISSUE GROUP, CANADA
Cascades Antibacterial Paper Towels: The Most Innovative Technology for Hand Hygiene
“It is a well-known fact: the average person does not have proper hand washing habits. As proven by many studies, the safest method to dry hands is paper towels; air dryers are known to increase bacteria on your skin and surrounding areas. That is how Cascades came up with the idea of developing the first antibacterial paper towel to compensate for less than perfect hand hygiene practices. Unique and innovative, Cascades Antibacterial paper towels provide a simple and effective way to further reduce bacterial contamination and transmission. In contact with wet hands, these paper towels release 0.11% of Benzalkonium Chloride on hands killing 99.99% of residual bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes and E.Coli (based on 3rd party laboratory testing), which differentiates them from ordinary paper towels.
“Available in North America, they can fit anywhere and don’t require additional steps or change in habits. Contrary to alcohol hand sanitizers, these paper towels provide a lasting antibacterial effect for two hours. Moreover, proper hand washing and drying with Cascades Antibacterial paper towels help reduce Norovirus incidences. Cascades has a patent pending for both the product and its manufacturing process. The product’s green signature colour is a trademark of Cascades.”
TONY CURTIS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, SOFIDEL AMERICA, USA
Combined Environmental, Energy and Monetary Benefits with the CHP Power Plant
“The presentation discussed Sofidel’s sustainability philosophy as a member of WWF Climate Savers Program and how it translates into real action. As a key example, it described Sofidel America’s commitment to its sustainability goals with a major energy project at its new site in Florida, USA. This is a turn-key project partnership with Haskell Design + Build. Described are the reasons behind the technology choice, the project milestones and the anticipated benefits to the environment and the company.”
IAN PADLEY, TISSU E APPLICATIONS MANAGER, EUROPE, BTG, SWITZERLAND
A New Approach To Optimise Tissue Machinery Performance
“Unscheduled downtime for production issues that lead to the regrinding or resurfacing of the Yankee dryer costs the tissue industry millions of dollars every year in lost production, product downgrade, slower operating speeds and equipment costs. A good diagnostic platform assists the tissue maker in identifying the root cause of these issues and permits early intervention with remedial actions or less costly repairs before the issue becomes acute and causes damage. BTG will propose a new approach to Yankee dryer management based on two powerful diagnostics; continuous vibration measurement and stop-action precision thermal imaging. These diagnostics are integrated with BTG’s extensive experience of the many parameters impacting the crepe blade performance. A systematic approach to the machine audit of potential process initiators for production issues allows the machine manager to focus on specific areas of concern, tracking the impact of remedial action via the advanced diagnostics. These diagnostics themselves still retain the traditional capability to alarm for and troubleshoot potentially damaging conditions.”
AL COONS, SENIOR PROJECT ENGINEER, PAPER MACHINES, CONSUMER PRODUCTS DIVISION, CLEARWATER PAPER, USA
Optimising The Life Of The Metalised Yankee Cylinders
“Yankee thermal coatings, or metallisations, have been around since the 1980s. However, new technologies are increasing the share of Yankees which are metallised. One of the most significant shifts is the acceptance of steel Yankee dryers in the marketplace, all of which must be metallised. Even on cast iron, thermal coatings are now thought of as Yankee performance improvement projects versus just asset life extension.
“As accepted as these coatings are, there is little information regarding how to specify a project, how is final quality determined, and how to care for the coating over the years to ensure the best return in investment? The paper covered practical application examples and provide ideas regarding project management and long term surface care.”
WILLIAM BONIS, APPLICATION ENGINEER, SKF, USA
Lubrication for Yankee Bearings
“Bearings for Yankee cylinders are oversized from a load point of view. The requested basic calculated rating life, L10h, is above 200,000 hours. This means that 90% of the bearings should operate for more than 23 years and that 50% of the bearings should operate for more than 115 years without any flaking (subsurface fatigue micro cracks reaching the surface and metal particles being liberated). The real average service life of Yankee cylinder bearings is below what could be expected. The reason is that many parameters such as bearing storage, handling, mounting, the lubrication and the lubricant characteristics etc. influence service life. Furthermore, many tissue machines get speeded up with steam pressures increased. Often, they then operate above original design speed. Inadequate bearing lubrication is a principal cause of lower than expected service life.”
NEIL DAVIS, GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY MANAGER, SONOCO PRODUCTS COMPANY, USA
The Core Impact of Evolving Tissue and Towel Trends
“To produce premium products that are softer, bulkier and more absorbent, leading tissue and towel producers are replacing conventional machines with TAD or ATMOS technology. But all too often, in their zeal to adopt new machine technology, maximise runtime with bigger rolls, and embrace more efficient automation, they overlook part of their ongoing consumables costs: cores. For tissue and towel producers, crucial aspects of parent core design and use can impact implementation speed, containment of recurring costs, waste reduction and sustainability.
“Successfully incorporating innovative technology and advances in converting depends on considering core design and performance from the early stages of process engineering. Core-related decisions should include how cores will be shipped and received, how chucks and inserts will be incorporated into the design of a converting unwind, how white waste is to be removed, and if used cores can be re-cut and re-graded.
“This paper and its presentation greatly increased the audience’s awareness of core issues that will help them avoid waste, save money and take the hiccups and headaches out of new equipment start-ups and rebuilds for years to come.”
JUDSON FIDLER, TECHNICAL CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER, SUZANO PULP AND PAPER AMERICA, INC, USA
Eucalyptus Fibre for Long Fibre Replacement and Maximising Quality in Tissue
Co-author: Manoel Silvestre Faez, R&D Innovation Technical Consultant, Suzano Paper & Celulose SA, Brazil
“Eucalyptus fibre is utilised in the manufacturing of tissue to provide superior paper properties as required by the end use segment. The Eucalyptus fibre is generally not added in the tissue process for contributing strength due to its shorter fibre length. Long fibre (softwood) is known to deliver an element of strength to the tissue paper. From a technical perspective, elevating the furnish level of Eucalyptus to provide strength may seem counter-intuitive.
“Suzano independent research on a tissue pilot plant presented in this paper shows how Eucalyptus can be used as a strength element and replace long fibre in tissue while maximising physical properties such as bulk, geometrical mean tensile (GMT), and hand-feel softness while maintaining run-ability. Bath tissue with 100% Eucalyptus was the objective, working with process variables like refining strategy and headbox layering.
“Aside from refining and process changes, upstream development work ongoing to enhance the strength of Eucalyptus from a pulp product perspective. The inclusion of additives in the paper process can also be an alternative to develop strength and replace long fibre.”
FATOS ANIL, TISSU E PAPER R&D MANAGER, HAYAT CHEMICALS INC, TURKEY
A Study on Increasing the Absorption Capacity of Tissue Paper: The Effect of Softwood/Hardwood Balance
“Tissue paper products require a balance of several effects including tensile strength, absorbency and softness. Of these three parameters, the strength of the sheet and its corresponding softness are interrelated. It is a well known fact that improving one of these properties often harms another such as mechanical treatments that enhance softness may also decrease tensile strength. For tissue products water absorbency is considered the most important property. In order to improve the water absorbency, the optimisation between pulp furnish and chemical additives is generally required. Softwood and hardwood fibres can be blended into a single paper to achieve a desired combination of strength, softness and absorbency. Softwood fibres that produce long, thick and strong fibres are obtained from coniferous trees. These qualities give strength to tissue, whereas, hardwood fibres are from deciduous trees and give smoothness and softness to tissue paper products since the fibres are shorter and finer. Using various fibre combinations helps to optimise the required characteristics of the tissue paper.”
MATT BRYER, PRODUCT MANAGER, PRESS TISSUE AMERICAS, ALBANY INTERNATIONAL, USA
Methods To Improve Press Fabric Performance
“Press fabric performance is a key factor in tissue machine and Yankee operations. Fabric life often dictates our down day cycles and is a key influence on the stability of the moisture profile and the Yankee coating. At Tissue World Americas 2014, Albany International discussed key on-machine and off-machine analytical techniques that are designed to extend fabric life and optimise fabric design to help keep machines running in the sweet spot.”
A QUICK REVIEW
On Machine Monitoring
- Utilising a water perm unit and developing a history can help gauge the openness of a press fabric on the run to help reduce break-in time and improve drying
- Combine this with automating the HPS pressure with Suction Pressure Roll vacuum, and the fabric will stay in its “sweet spot” longer with less variation
Off Machine Analysis
- If a fabric has been acting “filled” but the dry fillers and lab report don’t suggest an issue, consider a wet filling analysis
- Z-directional photos can help pinpoint where in the felt’s structure filling is occurring to make smarter design and conditioning decisions
