The reactivity of prehydrolyzed softwood kraft pulps after prolonged cooking followed by chlorite delignification

Abstract

In a laboratory study high-quality spruce chips were prehydrolyzed to remove hemicelluloses and then kraft cooked to different kappa numbers by varying the cooking time. Each pulp sample was then chlorite delignified to selectively remove the remaining lignin. The reactivities of the pulp samples before and after chlorite delignification were determined by Fock's test, which is supposed to measure the pulp's reactivity in the conventional viscose process. A number of analyses were carried out to determine which parameters affected pulp reactivity, as, for example: intrinsic viscosity, kappa number, pulp yield, carbohydrate composition, levelling-off degree of polymerization (LODP), and alkali solubility. The results of the study showed that the pulp reactivity increased with decreasing kappa number, and the highest reactivity was obtained after total lignin removal using chlorite delignification. It was also found that the carbohydrate composition had no influence on the pulp reactivity, but lower intrinsic viscosity either obtained by prolonged cooking or chlorite delignification correlated with higher pulp reactivity. Finally, lower alkali solubility, i.e. higher R18, reduced the reactivity.