Suppliers Focus on Papermaking Needs

Bayer Corp.

Recent developments at Bayer Corp. have been made in the product areas of polyurethane dispersion, sizing agents, retention agents, fluorescent whiting agents, paper colorants and flexographic inks.

Traditional polyurethane dispersions (PUDs) were never considered by papermakers due to the large quantities of VOC-producing co-solvents. Recent technology developments have led to PUDs that contain solvents at 1% and below.

Fluorescent whiting agents (FWAs) now offer the ability for the papermaker to go to the European ultra white grades. As the world's largest producer of FWA's, Bayer offers products that have a proven track record in Europe and Asia but are not currently accepted by American paper producers. In addition, Bayer has obtained FDA compliance for certain FWA products.

Retention aids have gone through a new evolution at Bayer, allowing drainage, first pass retention, and sheet ash beyond conventional levels. This will help those producers who are developing grades of board and paper formed under very high shear conditions, such as in gap forming paper machines, to run at speeds never thought obtainable from traditional retention aids. One of the new products has just cleared Federal TSCA (Toxic Substance Control Act) and is being introduced to the North American market.

Bayer Corporation has also developed a new line of aqueous pigment polymer dispersions for the on-site preparation of water-based flexographic inks. They offer exceptional overall performance in printing products such as tissues, napkins and paper towels. Specific performance characteristics are primarily determined by the particular binder component selected for use and VOCs that can go to less than 2%.

Additional focus on specialty chemicals can also been seen by Bayer's recent plan to purchase the paper sizing and strength businesses of Cytec Industries Inc. The acquisition will provide Bayer customers with the latest technology and will strengthen Bayer's global position in paper sizing agents.

Buckman Laboratories

For the customers Buckman serves, the last few years have been filled with change of all kinds; the industry is rife with mergers and acquisitions, hostile takeovers, and downsizing. Buckman successfully met the challenges presented by the changing environment in the specialty chemicals industry.

Several of Buckman's new product developments have focused on biodispersants. Buzyme 2506 is a concentrated enzyme cleaner for dispersion of starch residues or starch containing residues in holding tanks and lines. Buzyme 2506 contains a powerful alpha amylase that is very effective for hydrolysis of starch. Buzyme 2506 does not require the use of strong acids or harsh alkalies. It is effective in cleanup of tanks or lines containing residues over a wide temperature range of 50 degrees C to 100 degrees C. With re-circulation, starch is hydrolyzed and residues are easily rinsed. The time needed is dependent on the thickness of the residues and temperature.

Buzyme 2504 is one of a new series of enzyme-based biodispersants specifically formulated for use in paper machine short white water loops. The product is a stabilized nonionic formulation that is effective in slowing the rapid formation of biofilms by keeping the components of biological deposits in suspension. Buzyme 2504 is nonionic, which helps it work well when charge control or interference is critical in certain furnishes, such as highly filled, lightweight alkaline grades. The product is fully compatible with other Buckman biodispersants as well as most microbiocides found in the long circuits of paper machines or as preservatives in functional additives such as clays, calcium carbonate, starch slurries, alkaline or neutral sizes and strength additives.

Dow Chemical

Dow is working on ways to help customers keep pace by introducing more efficient hollow plastic pigments, providing innovative pilot coater facilities, and expanding its production plants globally.

The newest Dow plastic pigment provides better performance at lower cost. Based on an economical new manufacturing process, DOW HS3000NA porous hollow plastic pigment offers less print mottle; better opacity; equivalent gloss; faster, ammonia-free drying; and FDA approval. HS3000NA plastic pigment can be used in a broad range of coated paper and paperboard products. Unlike traditional smooth-shell hollow pigments, the surface of each HS3000NA particle is covered with tiny holes. This porosity makes the particles easier to crush during the calendering process than other pigments. The results are a more uniform distribution, an ultra-smooth surface, and consequently, less print mottle.

HS3000NA plastic pigment helps coatings dry quickly. Because the product is porous, it releases water faster than other hollow pigments, reducing drying time and using less energy. Since it is ammonia-free, it creates a more pleasant, low-odor work environment.

Another innovation Dow brings is its pilot coater facilities. With facilities in Midland, Mich., and Horgen, Switzerland, the pilot coater program is a service unique to Dow. No other latex supplier has pilot coater facilities in two hemispheres. Dow uses the pilot coaters to help customers duplicate a wide variety of mill conditions and machines using virtually any paper or paperboard product. The company has invested an average of $1 million/yr to update the Midland facility, with similar investments in Horgen. To keep up with advances in coating application methods, Dow has the ability to run formulations by jet, short dwell, flooded nip or bent blade applications, using a common backing roll and web path.

Lastly, Dow is unique in the industry in its global reach. With 19 production facilities in 15 countries and a global capacity exceeding 1.5 billion pounds of latex per year, the Dow Emulsion Polymers business currently dominates the world's paper latex market. To maintain that leadership position, Dow is mounting a three-pronged expansion effort.

In North America, all six Emulsion Polymers plants have undergone upgrades resulting in significant capacity increases. In Asia, plans are in place to open a new plant in Zhangjiagang, China, in 2002. And, in Europe, additional capacity will be added to Dow's production facilities in Norrkoping, Sweden, and Livorno, Italy.

Eka Chemicals

At Eka Chemicals, R&D efforts are market driven and focused on providing value as part of the supply chain. While products for use in the papermaking process are the end result, a holistic development process is used to meet market needs.

Eka Chemicals continues to build upon its original microparticle retention technology with new nanoparticle systems that meet the challenges of more difficult white water systems found in wood-containing and recycled mills. Advances with alkaline internal sizing agents and surface size have resulted in easy-to-apply, efficient products that meet the changing needs of paper and paperboard producers their customers.

Over the past several years there has been a focus on the levels of DCP (1,3 Dichloro -2- propanol) and CPD (3 - Chloro-1, 2 propanediol) in polyamidoamine-epichlorohydrin wet strength resins. A holistic approach has been taken by Eka Chemicals to understand the impact of these residuals in the air, wastewater, and finished paper products. Together with the regulatory agencies, new measurement methods and limits in paper have been agreed upon for the European Community. As the regulations move into place, Eka Chemicals is able to provide the products and knowledge to help paper producers meet these new demands. The initial implementation of new product technology to meet these demands will be in tea bag, coffee filter and other food contact grades. Tissue and toweling grades will be required to make the shift within the next year.

Engelhard Corp.

Engelhard has focused its new product efforts during 2000 on developing calcined and engineered kaolin-based pigments that have improved performance and cost. It also broadened the capability of its inkjet pigment line.

In the calcined area, Engelhard's new Excaliber pigment aids opacity at relatively low loadings. The pigment's high opacity can reduce coating costs by lowering the use of titanium dioxide as much as 25% and total mineral loadings by as much as 50%. It can either build opacity at equivalent mineral content or reduce mineral loading at equivalent opacity. It also can allow the use of lower basis weight paper at the same opacity and brightness, for instance going from LWC to U-LWC.

Mirana engineered pigments combine exceptional economy and performance in offset, rotogravure lightweight coated, and coated wood-free papers. They represent a new generation of engineered products that have narrow particle size distributions created solely by chemical means. Mirana pigments offer a broad range of benefits, including enhanced coverage, opacity, brightness, whiteness, and sheet and print gloss. They can reduce the need for more expensive titanium dioxide and plastic pigments in lightweight and ultra-lightweight coated papers and can improve runability on high-speed coaters.

Engelhard extended its Digitex kaolin-based inkjet coating pigment line with Digitex TG pigment. Digitex pigment forms a matte, coated inkjet paper. When the TG grade is topcoated on a Digitex coating, it allows sheet gloss levels as high as 50% (75 degrees gloss) so the paper can be used in high-quality, photo applications

Digitex TG pigment also provides papermakers with a new way to build sheet gloss. It costs less than the synthetic resins often used to add gloss and eliminates the tackiness that occurs when resin is exposed to moisture. It also adds gloss at moderate calendering pressures, so the primary coating pigment is not crushed and there is little loss in opacity and brightness. Digitex inkjet coating pigments are replacing silica pigments in inkjet papers because they have the pore volume needed to dry inkjet inks rapidly and, unlike silica, they can be coated on machine.

Georgia-Pacific Paper Chemicals

Georgia-Pacific Paper Chemicals is differentiating itself from other "performance" paper chemical suppliers by bringing measurable and significant enhancements to its portfolio of strength, sizing, and coating chemistries. G-P's R&D team is looking beyond the current mix of performance chemicals, seeking to bring a new breed of products to the marketplace. The developmental products are targeted to bring advancements such as improved stiffness to paperboard or to provide a replacement of wax in selected packaging applications.

G-P Paper Chemicals' recently commercialized Amres 25-HP high-efficiency wet strength resin is the most recent result of the group's focus on innovation. Amres 25-HP has consistently demonstrated the ability to reduce strength resin use by 15% to 25%, while maintaining the customer's targeted wet strength performance specifications. Alternatively, the papermaker can maintain the current levels of strength resin addition and achieve dramatically superior wet strength performance.

Kemira Specialty Paper Chemicals

Kemira Specialty Paper Chemicals focuses on providing the paper industry with high quality application know-how, chemicals, equipment, and customer service for the wet end. Retention control, deposit control, sizing and water quality management are in the core of the company's know-how. Kemira provides customers with cost-effective retention systems for paper and board production.

Kemira has developed a new retention system, Fennosil A, especially for the latest generations of paper machines. Fennosil A combines advanced properties and cost-efficiency for fine paper retention applications. Fennosil A is particularly suited to base paper retention needs when producing both uncoated and coated fine papers. Using Fennosil A gives the papermaker a number of valuable benefits in areas such as base paper formation, runability, paper uniformity, and fines retention. Chemical oxygen demand (COD) is also reduced considerably when using Fennosil A.

An important goal for the pulp industry in the near future is to develop even more efficient closed water circulation systems. Kemira has launched a new product series, Fennofix 200, to be used in waste water treatment. Fennofix 200 can be used in removal of color, and to enhance the effect of inorganic coagulants and organic flocculants. Fennofix can also be used for fastening disturbance materials in paper manufacturing, removal of turbidity, and in retention systems.

Millennium Inorganic Chemicals

Millennium Inorganic Chemicals, the world's second largest manufacturer of titanium dioxide, supplies the global paper industry with the widest range of high performance titanium products designed to meet the ever-increasing optical requirements. The company's product development efforts have focused on improving the performance of titanium dioxide in paper applications. In 1999, Millennium introduced Tiona 4000, a high performance slurry designed for coated free-sheet applications that provides the opacification potential of the rutile crystalline structure in addition to the optical brightener efficiency and blueness advantages of the anatase crystalline structure. This product allows papermakers to use less titanium dioxide versus older generation anatase products or to use significantly less optical brightener when used in place of rutile products.

In 2000, Millennium dedicated its new $20 million research center in Baltimore, Md. This state-of-the-art facility is another example of the company's commitment of leveraging technology to create value. The facility houses both the global research organization along with the company's technical service groups which service the paint, plastics, and paper industries.

Nalco Chemical

Market demands on the papermaker to make more paper under more difficult conditions with significantly higher performance paper properties have created many opportunities for the innovative paper industry supplier. Paper machines continue to run at higher speeds with very high shear conditions. At the same time, there are increasing demands to put more filler in the finished sheet.

Nalco has successfully responded with a continuous introduction of unique technologies. The Ultra Positek microparticle program provides the papermaker with a tool to increase sheet ash levels into the 20s even at the high shear levels of the newest, high-speed machines. Often, as part of the Ultra Positek program, Nalco incorporates a hybrid polymer. This polymer has charge properties like those of a coagulant and the molecular weight and retention characteristics of a high molecular weight retention aid. The performance attainable with the Ultra Positek program and a hybrid polymer day-in and day-out gives the papermaker the most robust retention and drainage tool currently available. It is these unique drainage capabilities that provide the flexibility to run the paper machine and control sheet formation.

A given for the paper industry is that the water circuits will continue to become more closed while increasing use of dirty, secondary fiber. The most pronounced challenge presented by these conditions is wet end variability. Nalco's efforts with new polymer development have produced a product that not only performs well under high conductivity and high anionic trash conditions, but also provides consistent performance, even when there are wide swings in the quantities of these detrimental substances in the water circuit. This is technology already successfully running on several paper machines. This program, as well as the Ultra Positek microparticle program, has been proven to fit well into the wet end control schemes available from suppliers like BTG and Kajaani.

Some mills face increasing demands to reduce VOC emissions. Nalco's response has been the introduction of liquid polymers that are completely free of VOCs. These products, known as Ultimer polymers, not only solve this problem, but, in many applications, they exhibit performance not attainable with dry or oil-containing liquid polymers.

National Starch and Chemical

National Starch and Chemical's specialists, who have been developing new products for the pulp and paper industry, are keenly aware of the effect of mergers and acquisitions in the industry. National's response to mergers and acquisition is to continuously employ better methods to get more specific information about market needs, to develop the identified products to meet today's and future needs, and initiate a comprehensive way to provide the most complete solution. One creative idea that National Starch has planned will allow the company to focus more on designing starch products to enable papermakers to improve their quality and productivity while minimizing costs.

National Starch and Hercules Pulp and Paper Division have formed a strategic marketing alliance for the sale of the more than 300 million pounds of National's papermaking chemicals starch product line. The agreement covers the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and will be effective January 1, 2001. National Starch will continue its papermaking chemicals starch research, development and manufacturing activities, and Hercules will manage the marketing, sales and technical support of the product line in those regions. The starch products that Hercules markets will retain the National Starch brand names that customers rely on.

As paper mills continue to utilize higher and higher levels of recycled fiber, the quality of which decreases with each re-use, strength development is becoming increasingly difficult. As mills become more "closed," significantly reducing the amount of fresh water used in the manufacture of paper, the chemistry of the wet end becomes more and more hostile to the traditional technologies employed to develop strength, as well as control retention and drainage. Recognizing this, National has been working on innovative ways to address this concern. National has recently introduced new technology, under the OptiPLUS wet end starch brand name, which has shown a lot of promise in helping papermakers obtain the functionality they need in their paper under extremely harsh wet end conditions.

OMYA

OMYA continues to lead the development of new coating formulations with innovative products designed for enhanced performance. Leading the way is COVERCARB HP, an ultrafine product with a new particle size distribution that provides higher brightness, opacity, and gloss over HYDROCARB 90, which is the industry's workhorse for many applications. COVERCARB HP is finding its place anywhere that coverage and titanium dioxide replacement is important. LWC and coated recycled paperboard are market segments where COVERCARB HP adds value.

Lightweight coated free-sheet is another segment where titanium dioxide and plastic pigment reduction have been demonstrated. And recently COVERCARB 85 has been introduced as a new member of the COVERCARB family. Its finer particle size gives gloss improvements over COVERCARB HP while maintaining the product solids content and viscosity performance.

In the filler area OMYA continues to expand its product offerings with OMYAPAQUE being added in the last two years. OMYAPAQUE produces higher opacity and brightness over traditional products by virtue of its new particle size distribution. By reducing the fines content and lowering the surface area paper optical properties are optimized while maintaining the sheet strength and runability advantages of traditional products.

The OMYAFIL family of products continues to find expanding use as a filler for coated and uncoated woodfree papers. In addition to being an excellent filler alone or in combination with PCC, OMYAFIL is being applied on the sheet as a pigmented size press additive for enhanced surface properties.

Vinings Industries

Vinings Industries, Inc. has grown rapidly over the last decade through a series of strategic acquisitions, coupled with a purposeful product development program tied directly to customer need. The product development and marketing efforts have not only melded the product lines gained through acquisitions, but have resulted in the rapid change to the best available technology. Sixty five percent of the products sold today by the company were developed in the past five years.

Vinings Industries has a strong focus on the recycled paper and paperboard market. The company is a market leader in deinking newsprint and mixed office waste with its LIONSURF product line. The expertise extends to a network of Vinings employees with hands-on experience in optimizing and troubleshooting the total deinking plant operation. Vinings' ECOBRITE products are used successfully in a number of mills to make peroxide and sodium hydrosulfite bleaching processes work better and reduce bleaching costs as compared with commodity industrial chelant for metals control. The ECOBRITE product line is designed to meet the demand that the new EPA Cluster Rules has put on customers.

Recycled brown board often has impurities that make the finished sheet more slippery than a sheet made from virgin fiber. Vinings is an industry leader with its NOSLIP product line, which is used in linerboard manufacture and box plants to increase the friction between paper surfaces, so that reels of paper don't telescope and boxes can be stacked higher without slippage.

Stickies produce deposits on machinery and in forming fabrics as well as sheet defects in the finished paper. VINTROL products control stickies deposits on machinery and forming fabrics, while VINFELTS products clean and condition felts and dryer fabrics to allow lower cost production of paper. Vinings' deposit control chemical programs for recycle operations allow mills to produce paper with lower cost furnish alternatives. And Vinings is one of the largest manufactures of defoamers for the paper industry in North America. The company's AEROTECH defoamers are often custom formulated to handle the difficult foam control issues faced in customer locations using recycled fiber.