Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
DRYING OF PULPS
Table of content
DRYING OF PULPS..................................................................................................................................................... 1
WET END AND PRESSING .......................................................................................................................................... 2
PULP DRYING IN THE DRYING SECTIONS ................................................................................................................... 3
Airborne dryer .................................................................................................................................................... 3
Cylinder dryers................................................................................................................................................... 4
Flash drying ....................................................................................................................................................... 5
CUTTER LAYBOY AND BALING ................................................................................................................................. 6
Cutting of the pulp web....................................................................................................................................... 6
Pulp bale handling ............................................................................................................................................. 6
QUALITY ASPECTS OF DRYING.................................................................................................................................. 6
QUESTIONS .............................................................................................................................................................. 7
Kaj Henricson
Professor Pulping Technology
Lappeenranta University of Technology
August 2004
Educational course material and only for internal and personal use during
the course: An introduction to chemical pulping technology.
Drying of pulps
In-nonintegrated pulp mills pulp is dried and cut to sheets that are stacked and packed to bales;
usually the size of a bale is 200kg. The pulp bales are transported to paper or board mills where the
pulp bales are repulped and used for the production of paper and board.
Pulp can also be used on a board or paper machine by pumping the pulp from the pulp mill to the
board or paper mill. Board and paper production at a mill integrated with the pulp mill saves the
costs of drying and repulping the pulp. Pulp drying changes to some marginal extent the properties
of the fibers and these changes can be favorable for some board and paper grades and negative for
some other grades.
The goal of drying is to remove most of the water from the pulp without affecting pulp quality in a
negative way. Another goal is to remove the water as economically as possible, that is using as little
steam as possible by efficient pressing of the pulp sheet prior to steam drying. The dryness after the
press section affects the amount of steam needed in the drying section. The pulp dryer is usually the
largest single consumer of steam in the fiber line and every percentage of dryness after the press
section affects the steam balance of the pulp mill. Advanced presses such as shoe presses are in use
at pulp mills in order to raise dryness before the drying section.
Picture 1. The web dryness after the press section is approximately 45%-48%. With improved press
section configurations such as shoe presses, dryness values over 52% are possible.
The oldest type of pulp drying machines uses the same idea as a typical fiber line drum thickener as
Picture 2 shows. The only difference in the operating principle is that in the pulp dryer, the pulp
exits the drum in a web form going to presses. Intermediate web heating was added to achieve
higher dryness before the drying section following the press section.
MPS
MPS
The double wire machine was developed in the early 1980s to further improve mechanical
dewatering and to increase the dryness of the web before thermal drying. Many types of double wire
machines have been available over the years. The largest double wire machine being built in 2003 is
for a production volume of 900,000 tons/year.
MPS, Metso
Flash drying
In flash drying, no web is formed. Instead, the pulp is thickened in a press device to about 35%-45%
solids content, and then it is shredded and fluffed to the smallest possible aggregate size for good
heat transfer. The fluffed pulp is blown into a stream of hot gas and passed into a series of drying
towers. Moist gas and pulp are separated in a cyclone, and the pulp is passed to the next drying stage
where the process is repeated. This continues until a sufficient level of dryness has been reached.
Most systems employ two stages. After drying, the pulp is cooled in a third stage with air. After
flash drying, baling is done in a slab press where the pulp is packed under hydraulic pressure into
rectangular slabs. The slabs are then assembled into bales of pulp.
MPS
MPS
With new machines, it is possible to reach a capacity of up to 300 bales per hour. Hydraulics have
for the most part been replaced by servomotors, frequency converters and pneumatics. During bale
handling, it is important to eliminate the risk of damaging the bale.
MPS, Metso
These changes can be related partly to the drying process and how it is performed. Change of
strength is associated to the final moisture content rather than to the drying method. One explanation
is that fibers loose their available bonding surface area and get more stable dimensions upon drying
to low moisture content.
Problems with repulping characteristics and brightness reversion may be related to local time and
temperature relationships in drying. A very high surface temperature in cylinder drying might cause
"case hardening" at the sheet surfaces which may lead to problems with rewetting and repulping.
This problem is less pronounced in air-float drying due to lower local temperature gradients.
6
Questions
1. The wet end section, the advantages of the double wire machine. / Kuivatuskoneen mrk
p, kaksoisviirakoneen edut.
2. The operating principle of an airborne dryer, the advantages of the airborne dryer. /
Leijukuivattimen toimintaperiaate ja kuivattimeen liittyvt edut.
3. The drying principles in use in drying pulp. / Kytss olevat kuivatusperiaatteet sellun
kuivatuksessa.
4. The effect of pulp drying on pulp properties. / Kuivatuksen vaikutus massan ominaisuuksiin.