Commercial dry sheets of hardwood and softwood bleached sulphate pulps and slush stock of hardwood and softwood unbleached sulphate pulps were beaten to about 350 m
l C. s. f. by a TAPPI standard beater. These pulps were dewatered by centrifuge in a cotton cloth bag, shredded by hand dried in a forced air circulation drying oven at 80°C for 6 days. A sequence of wetting, defibrating, dewatering and drying was one cycle and this was repeated upto five times. After recycling, pulps were made into handsheets and tested. The following results have been obtained.
(1) Strength of handsheets, such as breaking length and folding endurance, decreased with recycling. However, tear strength of softwood pulps once increased with recycling, followed by a little decrease. Bulk and brightness of sheets increased.
(2) With recycling at the condition applied in this study, some decrease in viscosity or degree of polymerization of cellulose in recycle pulp fibres were observed. However, degradation of cellulose could hardly been detected from carbonyl and carboxyl contents in recycled fibres.
(3) Increments of crystallinity indices of recycled fibres by X-ray diffraction and acid hydrolysis by 1N HCl-EtOH were positively observed.
(4) According to measurments of water retention value (WRV), water swelling of recycled fibres decreased with recycling. Also Borruso's EWNN (Iron sodium tartarate) solubility, which was expressed as (PSr), that is, the concentration of free alkali which gives 10% higher EWNN solubility than 18% NaOH solubility, was measured on recycled beaten fibres. Changes in WRV and (PSr)
B means some structural changes occured in recycled fibres. These changes coincided with decrease in amounts of polyethylene glycols of various molecular wei ghts of 200, 300, 400 and 600, retained in recycled fibres.
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