The role of surfactants as rewetting agents in enhancing paper absorbancy

Although surfactants have been widely used as rewetting agents, however, li ttle research on employing surfactants as rewetting agents for paper towel manufacture has been reported. In the present work, the role of surfactants in increasing gaper absorbency was investigated with the paper made on the Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) pilot papermachine. The experiments showed that surfactants significantly reduce the water abs orbency time (WAT) of paper products, which is caused by both an increase i n the average pore size and an increase in the hydrophilicity of fibres tre ated by the surfactants. The optimal dosage of surfactant required to produ ce a large reduction in WAT is related to the critical dosage needed to con siderably increase the average pore size, which is about 0.2% (wt on dry fi bres) or less. Although the increase in the water absorption capacity of pa per caused surfactants appears limited, the surfactant do change the locati on of water so that more water is absorbed on the fibres instead of the por es of fibre network. Overall, a cationic surfactant produced the largest re duction in the papers water absorbency time. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.