Column Flotation Deinking: State-of-the-art and opportunities

Flotation is a critical process step for ink removal from recycled paper. Column flotation is a specific form of flotation that has grown in popularity recently. Extensive efforts during the past four decades to improve the flotation deinking operation sought an optimum blend of technological parameters, physico-chemical aspects and economical process conditions. With increasing demand to recover and recycle waste paper due to ecological and economical concerns, there is a need for an improved process and therefore for in-depth understanding of the mechanism and fundamental factors involved in the efficiency and economics of the deinking process. This paper reviews the progress made in the last decade (2000–2010) in deinking hydrodynamics, various measurement techniques, scale-up and design criterion.     

Deinking of recycled pulps using column flotation: energy and environmental benefits

Deinking of recycled pulps is an important operation intended to provide pulps appropriate for making paper and paperboard products from recycled wastepaper. Conventionally, deinking of recycled pulp is conducted in a flotation cell equipped with an agitator. We have investigated the applicability of a new flotation cell based on a column without an agitator present to accomplish the deinking of typical wastepaper feedstocks and also a feedstock consisting of rejects from a conventional deinking cell. Experimental results on the deinking operation indicate that it is possible to achieve deinking of a mixture of photocopier and laserprinted paper in the column flotation cell. The performance of the column, as measured by the resultant pulp’s brightness and ink particle size distributions, is comparable to that of a conventional laboratory cell which incorporates severe agitation regimens. Thus, it is found that the agitator can be eliminated by using the column flotation design which could yield significant electrical energy savings in addition to savings in capital costs and other operational and maintenance costs. A series of deinking experiments were also performed on a feedstock consisting of rejected waste obtained from a conventional cell in a pilot plant. We found that deinking of the rejected waste could yield significant usable fiber. This indicates the potential of the column flotation technique in enhancing the reuse of a waste component thus reducing the volume of deinking waste rejected into the environment.     

Experimental Investigation on the Removal of Toner Particles from Laser-Printed Office Waste Papers

Abstract

In this work the deinking process was simulated in a small high speed blender of about 2 L capacity. The effects of polyethylene (PE) and wax-coated PE on the removal of toner particles in the pulper slurry has been experimentally investigated. The effect of one commercial surfactant (30% anionic, 5% nonionic) on the toner release efficiency was also studied. The average area of toner particles retained on filter papers were determined using an image analysis system that consists of a high-resolution video camera mounted on an optical polarizing microscope, an image software processor, a Pentium PC, and a high-resolution image monitor. The effect of low density PE on toner detachment from laser-printed standard paper was investigated over a concentration range of 0 –200% PE (relative to paper mass). It is found that PE has a certain capabilty of removing (adsorbing) toner particles. In the second phase of this research work, the effect of wax-coated PE was investigated. It was found that wax-coated PE enhances the removal of toner particles beyond that obtained using only PE. Finally, the effect of a commercial surfactant on the release of toner particles have been investigated over a range of surfactant mass percentage (relative to the paper mass).