Sulfate cooking - a commercially dominating and continously improving pulping process

Sulfite cooking was earlier the dominating pulping process but sulfate (kraft) cooking is today the most important process for the production of chemical pulps and high-yield pulps. One important reason for this development of the sulfate process is its ability to efficiently use different wood species, in particular different hardwood species. Another reason is that bleached hardwood sulfate pulps have become a strong competitor to bleached softwood sulfite pulps. The pros and cons of sulfate cooking are discussed in this report and compared with sulfite cooking.