Developments in non-chlorine bleaching technology over the last few years has made it viable to consider the closed cycle bleach plants pursued by designers over twenty years ago. The market demand for low and total chlorine free pulp has made operation of bleach plants without elemental chlorine (ECF) and without any chlorine (TCF) not only feasible but commercially successful in a number of mills around the world. Although there is yet to be a totally effluent free mill operate on chemical pulps, this seems the vision for a number of pulp and paper company executives for the future.
In this paper, the requirements for successful production of TCF pulps are reviewed, and details of bleach plant design are discussed, using ozone and peroxide as bleaching chemicals.