Engineering of a Wet-End Additives Program Relative to Process Parameters and to the Physical and Optical Properties of Filled Paper

In the manufacture of a paper product, the application of wet-end additives and the adjustments of various conditions can have major effects on the physical and optical properties of the final paper. In this study, we prepared paper handsheets and investigated the effects of many process variables, including the type and amounts of cationic polyacrylamide and colloidal silica, in addition to temperature, duration of mixing, hydrodynamic shear, pH, and variations in electrical conductivity due to salt addition. The most important effects were attributable to variations in the amount, ionic charge, and molecular weight of cationic polyacrylamide, as well as the type and amount of colloidal silica. Many of the observed effects could be explained in terms of fiber flocculation, and the adverse effect of flocculation on the uniformity of the paper, a factor that significantly affected the physical properties. An understanding of the relationships between chemical variables, hydrodynamic shear, and other system variables can be helpful in selecting optimal operating conditions to meet process requirements as well as physical properties of the resulting paper. A statistical analysis was carried out, using normalized coordinates, to show which of the independent variables had significant effects on the response variables.