A study of purified wood fibers as a papermaking material

Abstract

The characteristics of purified wood fibers and commercial papers prepared from these fibers are being investigated from the standpoint of chemical purity, color, durability, and permanence and compared with other typical papers and paper-making fibers. The interest in the purified wood fibers lies not only in their value for high-quality bond and writing papers of the grade hitherto made entirely from rag fibers or mixtures of rag and sulphite fibers but also very largely in their permanence qualities and thus the possibility of using them to supplant the higher-priced rag fibers in permanent record or other papers in which durability must be maintained over centuries. Tests have been made on typical commercial grades of paper-making fibers, such as soda pulps, sulphite pulps, purified wood pulps, and rag half stocks. A thorough study was made of the physical properties of commercial papers made from fibers similar to the above. The effect of accelerated aging tests on the chemical and physical properties of these papers and paper-making fibers was determined in order to obtain information on the relative permanence of these materials. The more important conclusions of this investigation follow. Accurate evaluations of the quality of papers or paper-making fibers must be based on specified performance tests. Fiber composition can not be taken as a criterion of the excellence of a paper. The manner in which the purified wood fibers and paper prepared from them react to the various tests for durability, permanence, color characteristics, etc., indicates that they are well adapted for conversion into high-quality bond and permanent record papers, which have hitherto been made exclusively from furnishes of high-grade rag half stock. CONTENTS