USING SIMONS STAIN TO PREDICT ENERGY SAVINGS DURING BIOMECHANICAL PULPING

Citation
M. Akhtar et al., USING SIMONS STAIN TO PREDICT ENERGY SAVINGS DURING BIOMECHANICAL PULPING, Wood and fiber science, 27(3), 1995, pp. 258-264
Citations number
20
Categorie Soggetti
Materiales Science, Textiles","Materials Science, Paper & Wood",Forestry
Journal title
ISSN journal
07356161
Volume
27
Issue
3
Year of publication
1995
Pages
258 - 264
Database
ISI
SICI code
0735-6161(1995)27:3<258:USSTPE>2.0.ZU;2-6
Abstract
Pretreatment of wood chips with lignin-degrading fungi can save substa ntial amounts of electrical energy during a mechanical pulping process . In order to optimize this process, a rapid and reliable method was n eeded to predict energy savings. In this paper, we examine a fiber sta ining method that involves the use of Simons stain. This stain for mic roscopic examination of pulp fibers has been used previously to evalua te the degree of fibrillation in beaten fibers or more recently to dif ferentiate fibers from untreated (control) and fungus-treated wood chi ps. Aspen or loblolly pine wood chips were treated with white-rot fung i under different experimental conditions in static-bed bioreactors fo r two or four weeks. At harvest, control and fungus-treated chips were refined through a single-disk mechanical refiner and then evaluated f or fiber staining characteristics and the energy consumption during re fining. Fibers obtained from control pulps stained a deep blue, wherea s those obtained from different biopulps showed different intensities of yellow. The yellowing of biopulp fibers correlated very well with e nergy savings. The results demonstrate that the Simons staining method can accurately predict appreciable energy savings during biomechanica l pulping and therefore can be used as a rapid screening technique to optimize the biopulping process.