This study verified the feasibility of liberating secondary fibers fro
m wastepaper webs by weakening interfiber hydrogen bonds of paper webs
with water, and processing with an atmospheric pressure single-rotati
on disc refiner and a fiber separator and dryer. The intent was to lib
erate secondary fibers from paper webs while retaining most fiber inte
grity without employing the highly water-dependent hydropulping operat
ion that characterizes the wet-liberation process widely used by the p
ulp and paper industry. Eliminating the hydropulping would eliminate t
he need for water-pollution-abatement operations. The effectiveness of
this moist-liberation process (no hydropulping) was indirectly verifi
ed by the fact that flexural strength and water-related physical prope
rties of moist-liberated old corrugated container (OCC) secondary fibe
r composites (bonded with a very high polyisocyanate resin level using
a dry-consolidation process) are comparable to those of wet-liberatio
n processed (hydropulped) OCC secondary fibers.