Measurement, nature and removal of stickies in deinked pulp

Abstract Stickies refer to tacky contaminants in recovered paper, excluding wood extractives. Stickies originate from adhesives, ink binders and coating binders. Stickies able to pass a sieve of 100 or 150 μm (depending on standard) are called micro stickies, whereas the particles retained on the screen are called macro stickies. Dissolved and colloidal stickies are called secondary stickies. There are standard methods for macro stickies, but a standard method measuring the total amount of stickies is lacking. Furthermore, the size distribution, and nature of stickies in the sense if they are free particles or agglomerated with some other substances, has not been previously known. The information on the removal of stickies in different unit operations was also not known very well except for macro stickies. The aim of this thesis was thus to develop an analysis method for the total amount of stickies, determine the size distribution and nature of stickies, and find ways to better remove stickies in the deinking process. Extraction with tetrahydrofuran (THF) and High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) with Size Exclusion Column (SEC) was used here to separate hydrophobic polymers (stickies) from the pulp suspension. An Evaporating solvent Light Scattering (ELS) detector was utilized to quantify the polymers after SEC. This analysis procedure was used in this thesis to measure stickies. Fractionation of pulp before the analysis was carried out if information of different-sized stickies was desired. The majority of stickies are micro stickies. A significant, although lower, portion of stickies are macrostickies, especially in the beginning of the deinking process. The dissolved and colloidal phase was found to contain wood extractives, and only trace amounts of stickies. Flotation is very effective in stickies removal. Ink and micro stickies were removed nearly equally in flotation, because they both are hydrophobic and are both in an optimal size range for removal in flotation. Ink measurements may be used for estimating the trends of stickies removal in flotation. The stickies removal in flotation may be enhanced by optimizing the pulper chemistry