Abstract
Needle-shaped aragonite, a thermodynamically metastable polymorph of CaCO3, was synthesized in a deinked old newspaper pulp (ONP) slurry, otherwise known as the in-situ aragonite formation process, in order to improve the optical properties such as the brightness and ERIC value (effective residual ink concentration) as well as to preserve the strength properties such as the breaking length of the resultant handsheet. The brightness and ERIC value of the handsheet obtained from pulp that was subjected to the in-situ aragonite formation process was improved by 20.4% (from 56.8 to 68.4%) and 55.4% (from 292.1 to 130.4 ppm), respectively, relative to a raw ONP sample. The effects of the in-situ aragonite formation process on the resultant handsheet were compared with the results obtained from a similar process in which rhombohedral-type calcite was synthesized instead of the needle-shaped aragonite. From the comparison, it can be concluded that the in-situ aragonite formation process provides better optical and strength properties to the resultant handsheet than that of calcite, and this is attributed to the needle-shaped morphology of aragonite.
