Circular action treatment (CAT): a new strategy for mechanical treatment of old corrugated container III

OCC have been the most important raw material for production of papers for industrial grades. The quality of OCC fibers have been deteriorated by repeated recycling process. In order to overcome the defects of OCC CAT has been developed as a new strategy for old corrugated container (OCC), which could generate mild mechanical action. The effect of CAT was proven through the previous researches which showed the increase of the fiber properties, such as WRV, freeness, and strength properties, and positive effect on paper strength. Based on the results, mill-scale application of CAT was performed at a linerboard mill located in Republic of KOREA. In this paper, mill-scale CAT was designed with higher power and dimension compared to the previous lab-scale CAT, which was equipped at the screw press outlet in a papermaking process. Fiber properties, final product quality, and energy consumption were analyzed with the installation of mill-scale CAT. Freeness and WRV were improved with an increase of passing time, and mean fiber length was constant simultaneously. In terms of process runnability, there was no problem during the test. Furthermore the outstanding achievement was found that the energy could be saved using CAT by around 30 % compared to double-disc low-consistency refining. Consequently CAT could be a new alternative for treatment of OCC without any troubles.