Studies on cost reduction of ivory base paper without affecting quality

Abstract

Globalisation has compelled the Indian pulp and paper industry to improve the product quality with cost reduction to survive in a globally competitive market, the best possible alternative for their survival is to reduce the production cost by augmenting the activities through in-house R&D. With this background the cost reduction aspects of Ivory base paper used in decorative laminates were studied. Titanium dioxide filler due to its very small particle size passes among the cellulosic fibres and comes into the white water. A simple remedy to overcome this problem is to use retention aids; yet due to the agglomeration of titanium dioxide particles the light scattering efficiency of TiO2 decreases. Further, during saturation steps with melamine formaldehyde the air in the voids is replaced by melamine formaldehyde while the refractive index sharply decreases and becomes equal to the refractive index of cellulose. As a result the sheet becomes transparent and sun-mica- a decorative laminate poses 'see through' problem. This problem may be bridged over by replacing expensive TiO2 with aluminum tri-hydroxide (ATH). ATH not only improves the TiO2 retention in wet web but also reduces the manufacturing cost.