Date of Award

5-1998

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science

Department

Paper Science and Engineering

Abstract

The problem of energy consumption is one of the largest confronting the paper industry today. One of the largest areas where this energy consumption occurs is the dryer section on the paper machine. If a legitimate way to reduce the load to the dryer section was developed, it would greatly benefit the paper industries financial situation. Some of the methods that have been used to reduce dryer load include; increasing the pressure in the press section, heating the press rolls in the press section, and applying chemicals to the felts which help inhibit rewetting. The latter item is what this project attempts to tackle. The chemicals that have been found to work in curtailing rewetting are for the most part, flammable. These include kerosene, which was found to work when washing felts, and a chemical similar to cyclohexane, developed by John Penniman. The main goal of this thesis is to find a nonflammable additive that reduces rewetting. In this experiment a drop press was used to simulate the actual press nip in a paper mill, and as is explained later, this was not a very successful portion of the experiment. The chemicals that were tested were kerosene, cyclohexane, pentane, toluene, and acetic acid. The chemicals were applied at a dosage of 0.1 g, 0.2 g, and 0.5 g per felt, and these were compared to the experiments with no chemicals added. When the experiment was performed it was found that acetic acid at 0.5 g application worked the best. In actuality the cyclohexane worked the best overall, and the acetic acid and kerosene were not as successful. The cyclohexane did tend to be less effective as the experiment wore on. Based on all of the criteria listed above the most successful chemical was the toluene.

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