Polytechnic University of the Philippines

Maragondon Branch

Maragondon, Cavite

PAPER: Its History, Safety Manufacturing Tips, Equipment Used,

Manufacturing Process and Types

HISTORY

e associate paper so strongly with writing that it's easy to forget its
W other uses. By the same token, we don't often think about the fact that
paper was, at one time, an invention. The fact remains, however, that
paper was once at the cutting edge of modern technology. Indeed, the
material which was used not just for books but for packaging, cleaning,
decoration, and a host of other applications has taken a fascinating journey
through history to arrive at its current state of ubiquity.

Formed from wood pulp or plant fiber, paper is chiefly used for written
communication. The earliest paper was papyrus, made from reeds by the
Photo: Papyrus is
ancient Egyptians. Paper was made by the Chinese in the second century, a material similar
probably by a Chinese court official named Cai Lun. His paper was made to thick paper that
from such things as tree bark and old fish netting. Recognized almost was used in
ancient times as
immediately as a valuable secret, it was 500 years before the Japanese
a writing surface.
acquired knowledge of the method. Papermaking was known in the Islamic
world from the end of the eighth century A.D.
Knowledge of papermaking eventually moved
westward, and the first European paper mill was
built at Jativa, in the province of Valencia, Spain,
in about 1150. By the end of the 15th century,
paper mills existed in Italy, France, Germany, and
England, and by the end of the 16th century, paper
was being made throughout Europe.

Paper, whether produced in the modern factory or

by the most careful, delicate hand methods, is
made up of connected fibers. The fibers can come
from a number of sources including cloth rags, cellulose fibers from plants, and, most notably,
trees. The use of cloth in the process has always produced high-quality paper. Today, a large
proportion of cotton and linen fibers in the mix create many excellent papers for special uses,
from wedding invitation paper stock to special paper for pen and ink drawings.

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PAPER MANUFACTURING SAFETY TIPS

There are many types of dangers associated with paper making and converting facilities. These
dangers can cause severe injury to you or your co-workers.

Keep the following in mind to keep your work environment safe:

 Follow approved procedures at all times

 Receive proper training on equipment and tasks
 Pay attention to your own personal safety and the safety of others
 Maintain a clean, organized facility

Paper Machine Hazards

There are a number of hazards commonly found around paper machines. Being aware of the
types of hazards will help you identify, control, and/or avoid harm from specific instances of each.

We’ll list some of the most common.

Pinch Points

Pinch points are places where a person or a body part can be caught or crushed by equipment
movement.

Pinch point hazards can be found:

 Between moving machine parts

 Between a moving part and a stationary part
 Around or beneath loads being transported or hoisted
 Between mobile equipment and other machinery or objects

It is common practice to install single point or barrier guarding, or other engineering measures to
prevent pinch point injuries. Identifying, proper reporting, and resolution of potential dangers
should be an ongoing effort for all employees.
Nips
Nips are a type of pinch point usually associated with
adjacent rotating rolls, a rotating roll and a moving rope
or web (like a fabric or sheet of paper), or moving ropes
and rope sheaves. Nips are hazardous to fingers and
hands because they are often present where materials
must be fed into the process or at adjustment and
lubrication points.
Ingoing nips are located where two machine parts first
meet and one or both parts rotate. Ingoing nips can pull fingers, hands, hair, jewelry, and even
entire bodies into equipment and machinery. This can lead to serious injuries, including abrasion,
amputation, and even death.

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An outgoing nip is opposite of the ingoing nip and also presents a hazard. If an object were to
enter an ingoing nip, it would be accelerated to the speed of the paper machine and become a
dangerous projectile when it exits.
Sharp Surfaces
Sharp surfaces are objects or machine parts that can
scratch, puncture, or lacerate the skin.
Be cautious of sharp surfaces when:
 Working with your hands. Hand injuries are the most
common injuries associated with sharp surfaces.
 Using tools that are sharp by design, like saws and
knives. For example, when using a utility knife, always
cut away from your body.
 Working around moving fabrics on paper machines. Bumping up against the edge of a
moving fabric will cause a very serious cut.
 Handling doctor blades and worn creping blades. Always follow established procedures
and wear all required PPE for your location.
 Performing new or unfamiliar tasks. Be alert for metal burrs, protruding bolts, and sharp
or rough edges.
Hot Surfaces
Hot surfaces are another common hazard in a paper manufacturing facility.
Machine surfaces can be hot because they are
designed to produce or transfer heat, or because
the friction created by machine movement has
caused them to become hot. Some potential hot
surfaces on a paper machine include steam lines,
steam traps, pumps, and the motor on a forklift.
Be aware that hot surfaces may sometimes remain
hot for minutes, or even hours, after a machine has
been turned off. If you are unfamiliar with a
machine, don’t touch its surface unless you are
sure it is safe.
Slips, Trips, and Falls
Slips, trips, and falls are responsible for many industrial facility injuries, and they’re a serious
concern at paper manufacturing facilities as well. Injuries ranging from cuts and bruises to broken
bones, paralysis, and even death can result from falls at ground-level or from only a few feet.
Some leading causes of fall injuries in papermaking facilities include:

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 Objects left on the floor, such as broke
paper and scraps
Slippery fluids left on the floor, like water
at the wet end of a paper machine
where a lot of water and steam are used
 Insufficient or missing railings
 Poorly designed steps
 Not using ladders correctly
 Not using proper fall protection
 Not paying attention to surroundings
Airborne Particles
The papermaking and converting processes produce paper fiber dust that accumulates on the
machinery and ground.
Dust can be a hazard for several reasons:

 It can be slippery when collected on a

walkway
 It can easily get into an operator’s eyes
 When airborne, it can create a risk of fire
or explosion
 When airborne, it can cause respiratory
problems
Some processes are equipped with enclosures and dust removal systems to minimize dust
accumulation. However, it is still important that housekeeping practices are followed. Maintenance
and operations personnel should regularly use pressurized air to perform “blowdowns” to remove
dust from equipment surfaces and keep it from accumulating. However, blowdowns temporarily
increase the amount of dust in the air, causing a respiratory hazard. This hazard can be reduced
by using dust masks or other forms of respiratory protection.
Personal Protective Equipment
PPE is just another name for equipment
or clothing designed to keep you safe.
All facilities have requirements for the
necessary PPE when working in
specific areas or doing specific jobs.
Examples of common PPE are:
Hard hats, ear plugs, safety glasses,
safety shoes and gloves.
To work correctly, PPE must be comfortable and fit correctly. All PPE should be inspected for
damages or defects before use. Do not use defective PPE and dispose of it properly.

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EQUIPMENT USED FOR PAPERMAKING
Although some expensive papers are still
crafted by hand, most are churned out
quickly, efficiently, and automatically by
gigantic machines. Pulp is prepared for
papermaking machines either
mechanically or chemically. The
mechanical method (generally used to
make lower-grades of paper) is called
the ground wood process, because the
pulp was originally made by using huge
stones to grind up logs. Nowadays, pulp is
prepared by giant machines that cut, wash,
chop, beat, and blend wood, rags, or other
raw materials into a soggy mass of fibers.
In the chemical method, known as the Kraft
Photo: A small papermaking machine from the early
process (from the German word for
20th century. Photo by courtesy of National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST) Photographic "strength," because it produces strong
Collection. paper), plant materials are boiled up in
strong alkalis such as sodium sulfide or
sodium hydroxide to produce fibers. At this point, loading materials (surface coatings such as
clays), dyes (to make colored paper), and sizes (to strengthen and waterproof and prevent inks
from spreading) can be added to the mixture to change the properties of the finished paper
(sometimes they're added later).
Once the pulp has been prepared, it's turned into paper by an enormous roller machine. The best
known type of papermaking machine is called a Fourdrinier machine (named for the two English
brothers who invented it at the start of the 19th century), though there are alternatives (including
the cylinder machine developed a few years afterward by John Dickinson). Wet pulp enters the
machine from a trough called a headbox at one end and is spread over a moving, wire-mesh
conveyor belt. The belt is shaken, sucked, and blown to remove water from the mat of fibers,
before a watermark, texture, or other finish is pressed into it by a patterned roller called the dandy
roll. The paper is then pressed further and fully dried, looping again and again around a series of
rollers, before getting its final, very smooth pressing by large, heavy, steel rollers called calenders.
The finished paper emerges as webs (very large sheets) or rolls (for printing things like
newspapers and magazines). The biggest Fourdrinier machines produce paper at an astonishing
rate of over 60km/h (40 mph)!

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How Does a Fourdrinier Machine Work?

Fourdrinier machines are large and complex, but I've simplified the process greatly and color-
coded it so it's easier to understand. From wet pulp to finished roll, the paper passes through five
key stages: it starts off in a large vat called the headbox (gray); begins to form into paper on the
Fourdrinier table (blue); is pressed and dried by felt rollers (green); is further dried, shaped, and
smoothed in the dryer (red); and is finally pressed and rolled into finished shape by the calenders
(purple). The left side of the machine (as I've drawn it) is called the wet end; the right side is the
dry end.
In a bit more detail:
1. Headbox: The soggy wet mass of pulp starts off here. It could be a mixture of wood pulp
and recycled paper fibers.
2. Mesh: Sometimes called the Fourdrinier table or wire, this is where most of the water from
the pulp is removed and the paper slowly starts to form.
3. Suction boxes: While some of the water simply drips through the mesh, more is removed
by suction boxes (a bit like box-shaped vacuum cleaners designed to suck up water).
4. Dandy roll: This large roller puts a watermark, pattern, or texture on the paper.
5. Felt belt: The forming paper runs over a rotating felt belt that mops away further moisture.
6. Dryer: The paper loops back and forth over more felt rollers and heated dryers.
7. Calenders: The rollers at the very end smooth the paper so it's of completely uniform
thickness.
8. Paper roll: The paper is all finished and ready to use.

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PAPER MANUFACTURING PROCESS

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The process of papermaking uses raw materials including water, energy, chemicals and wood
chips (1), that contain cellulose. Cellulose is the fiber component of wood, and exists naturally in
most plant life.

The paper mill boilers (2) produce steam for turbines (3) that make electricity for motors and
pumps. Steam is also used to dry the paper, and to cook the wood chips in the digester during
pulping. The boilers use mostly bark and wood by-product as fuel. Less than 30 percent of the
boiler fuel comes from oil, coal, and natural gas.

Wood fiber often comes from lumber mills to paper mills as chips, (4) or as logs, (5) which are
debarked (6) and then sent into a chipper. (7) Chips and chemicals go into a digester, (8) which
is a big pressure cooker. After cooking with chemicals and steam, the wood chips are separated
into wood fiber and lignin, the chemical binding the cellulose together. Then, the mixture is blown
out of the pressurized digester into a non-pressurized blow tank (9). Washers (10) clean the
mixture by removing the cooking chemicals and lignin, turning it into pulp. The cooking chemicals
and lignin, called black liquor, is pumped to evaporators (11), which remove water. The
concentrated black liquor is pumped into a recovery boiler where (12) its bio-based content is
burned to generate the majority of steam and electricity needed to power the facility. The organic
material in the liquor burns and provides energy, while any inorganic material becomes a molten
stream that is drained from the boiler, dissolved in water and prepared for reuse in the digester to
cook more wood chips. Lime is added in the causticizer (13) from a lime kiln (14) and the
chemicals are pumped to a clarifier (15) to allow the solids to settle. Clean cooking chemicals are
sent to the digester for re-use, and residuals are washed and sent to the lime kiln to be turned
into lime.

The naturally brown pulp is made white through a bleaching process (16). Bleached paper is used
for books and magazines, food packaging, tissues, and hundreds of other uses. Some
unbleached pulp is used to make grocery bags, and corrugated shipping containers (cardboard
boxes). The pulp fibers are then prepared for the paper machine in refiners (17). Recovered paper
(18) is often used for additional fiber, or instead of wood fiber from trees. This fiber is pulped (19)
and cleaned, (20) just like the fiber from the digester and the pulper, (21) to ensure a uniform
sheet of paper.

To make paper, a pulp mixture of 1 percent fiber and 99 percent water flows from the headbox
(22) onto a moving former (23), a wire screen that drains some of the water into a wire pit (24).
The sheet that is formed is carried into a press section (25) where more water is removed. The
paper passes over dryers (26) enclosed in a hood (27). Some specialty papers get coated with
liquid clay or chemicals in a coating machine (28), to improve the surface and printability of the
paper.

The calender (29) smoothes the paper, which is then wound on a reel (30). The reel is either cut
into smaller rolls on a slitter (31) or made into sheets of paper on a sheeter (32). The finished
product is then shipped to our customers around the world.

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TYPES OF PAPER

TREE-FREE PAPER
• Plants, such as hemp, kenaf and bamboo, that yield fiber faster than
trees.
• Agricultural waste such as sugar cane, straw from wheat and rice,
and byproducts from coffee, banana and coconut plants.

RECYCLED PAPER
• Contains a percentage of fibers made from either post-consumer
waste (wastepaper) or pre-consumer waste (cleaner paper waste,
known as “broke”, from printers or the paper mill itself).

HANDMADE PAPER
• Small amounts of paper are still made by hand for
prestigious applications such as letterheads, limited-edition
books, and artists’ paper, where completely random
orientation of fibers is important, particularly for watercolor
paintings.
• The process is very slow and expensive, as each sheet
has to be hand-produced.

MOLD-MADE PAPER
• This is a high quality grade of paper usually made from cotton rag
pulp on a cylinder mold machine, rather than a Fourdrinier machine
(paper making machine).

ACID-FREE PAPER
• Acid-free is paper with a pH rating of 7 or higher rating of alkalinity.
It has a much longer life expectancy, and is used for books and other
publications that are intended to last in good condition. It is treated to
neutralize the acids that occur naturally in wood pulp. Where paper is
not acid-free, it can yellow and deteriorate over time.

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 BULKY MECHANICAL (NEWSPRINT)
• It is machine-finished paper, made mostly from
groundwood pulp, or recycled fiber used for printing
newspapers and cheap landfills.
• It discolors, and becomes brittle when it is exposed
to light, due to the impurities contained in and around
the fiber, that were not removed in the pulping process.

MECHANICAL PAPERS
• These contain a large proportion of mechanical wood pulp, but
also some chemical pulp to increase strength.
• Can be bleached
• Can be produced with a smooth surface by super calendering,
machine finishing, or machine glazing.
• Used for offset printing, also called WSOP (web sized offset
printing).
• These papers are used for cheaper leaflets and magazines -
halftones up to 120 lines ppi, or more, can be printed
satisfactorily.
FREESHEET (WOODFREE)
• This paper is still made from wood pulp, but it is
produced by the chemical, rather than the
mechanical process.
• To be described as wood free, the chemical
wood pulp content should be at least 90%.
• Strong sheets with good whiteness are
produced for use as general printing and writing papers, stationery, copying papers, and
magazine papers.
• These grades will take color, but with no such good results as coated qualities.
• Includes: “bond” paper with fine formation (used for stationery), and “bank” that is a lighter weight
version of bond.

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COATED PAPERS
• Gloss art paper is coated on both sides with china
clay or chalk and calendered to give a very high
smoothness and gloss.
• It is used for the printing of halftones and color, and
high-quality magazines and promotional material.
• The base paper of cheaper coated papers can
contain groundwood or recycled fiber.

PLASTIC PAPERS
• Made completely from plastic or with a plastic, or latex, coating over
a base paper.
• Although expensive, these products are ideal for the production of
some waterproof maps, workshop manuals and books for young
children.
• Tough and washable. They require special printing techniques and
inks.
CARBONLESS COPYING PAPERS
• Are produced by employing a coating of microcapsules that rupture
under the pressure of a stylus or printer key, releasing a solution of
colorless dye. This transfers to the reactive surface on the sheet
below where the dye is converted to its colored form.

PAPERS FOR DIGITAL PRINTING

• Many digital presses use toners instead of conventional offset inks,
and these react with heat as the image is fused onto the paper.
• Coated stocks can cause problems in electrographic printing, as the
coating acts as an insulator.
• The moisture levels are more critical in digital printing.

CRISTAL JANE O. MERLAN

BSME – V
MEEN 3512 – INDUSTRIAL PROCESSES

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