Studies of the Impregnation Stagein Kraft Pulping of Hardwood

Sammanfattning: In kraft pulping, one of the main issues is the extensive wood losses. With increasing prices ofwoody biomass an incentive towards minimizing the wood losses exists. Amongst the variousprocess steps, the impregnation of wood chips has shown to enhance the cooking by providinga homogeneous distribution of chemicals inside the chips. It is proven that a more proficientimpregnation phase can improve the overall yield in kraft pulping. However, there is a lack ofscientific research comparing different impregnation techniques for hardwood. Hence, thisthesis will attempt to clarify the impregnation of hardwood.The impregnation efficiency was studied by comparing three different impregnation methods:High Alkali Impregnation (HAI), Extended Impregnation (EI) using a low alkali level and aReference Impregnation (REF) to enable a comparison to the industrially establishedconditions. The cases were compared by analysing the yield, selectivity and homogeneity. Thecomparison was also made under cooking conditions with the objective to understand theimpact of impregnation on the subsequent cooking phase. The cooking procedure was assessedby analysing the degree of delignification, yield and reject content.In impregnation, most chemical consuming reactions occurred within the first 10-30 minutes,mainly contributed by deacetylation. HAI obtained the fastest homogeneous distribution of OH-(~60 min), but the fastest dissolution of wood. The effect was contributed by the high [OH-],providing fast diffusion of ions and rapid dissolution of xylan. In the contrary, EI attained thehighest impregnation yield after a given impregnation time but required a prolonged durationto obtain a chemical equilibrium between the free and bound liquor (~120 min). REF showeda higher yield than HAI and similar chemical equilibrium as EI. The hydrosulphide sorption inimpregnation was highest for EI due to the high initial sulphidity charge and similar for REFand HAI. For impregnations at 115°C, the HS- sorption was significantly increased for all cases,resulting from delignification. In the subsequent cooking phase, it was prevalent that impregnation of chips under EIconditions were easier delignified, leading to a reduced cooking time to reach the defibrationpoint. Birch was more prone to delignification than eucalyptus. In turn, eucalyptus also obtaineda higher defibration point. Highest total cooking yield at similar kappa numbers was achievedwith REF conditions, followed by HAI and lastly the EI conditions. The high yield of REF incontrast to HAI could be explained by an improved xylan yield due to an alleviated hydroxidelevel. The low yield of EI can be assigned to continues peeling due to the prolongedimpregnation and loss of xylan when removing black liquor after impregnation. In terms ofproduction rate, yield, energy and chemical consumption the REF is the most efficientimpregnation condition for birch kraft cooking in this batchwise laboratory kraft cookingprocedure.