Several semichemical pulps were obtained in yield of about 75 % from birch wood by means of acid sulfite (initial pH 1.5 of cooking liquor), bisulfite (pH 4.5), mildly acid sulfite (pH 6.0), neutral sulfite (pH 8.4) and sulfate cookings, and the comparisons were made on their compositions and the papermaking properties of resulting bleached pulps.
If compared at the same level of yield, the various sulfite type unbleached semichemical pulps are nearly equal in lignin content and carbohydrate composition. On the other hand, unbleached sulfate semichemical pulp is higher in lignin content and somewhat lower in mannan and cellulose content, but nearly equal in xylan and uronic acid contents compared with the sulfite type pulps at the equal yield (Table 1 and 2).
The hemicelluloses extracted from these pulps are nearly equal in composition, but are greatly varied in the other properties relating closely to strength of a fiber-to-fiber bond of each pulp sheet, such as degree of polymerization (Fig.1), viscosity (Fig. 4) and adhesive property (Fig. 5) according to the cooking process. That is, in the case of sulfite type cookings, these properties of hemicellulose lowering with decreasing of pH value of cooking liquor, and consequently bleached semichemical pulps obtained by bisulfite cooking and acid sulfite cooking are inferior to mildly acid sulfite and neutral sulfite semichemical pulps in sheet strength, especially tearing strength (Fig. 3).
Bleached neutral sulfite semichemical pulp is generally equal or slightly higher in paper strength than bleached sulfate chemical (Fig. 6) or semichemical pulps. This fact is also probably due to that the hemicelluloses in these pulps are nearly comparable in the above properties.
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