The effects of sodium percarbonate and perborate usage on pulping and flotation deinking instead of hydrogen peroxide

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the potential of sodium percarbonate and sodium perborate utilization during repulping of old news and magazine paper mixture. A series of experiments were performed to determine the effects of bleaching agents on ISO brightness and ink removal efficiency of pulp after flotation deinking. Conventionally, with other parameters are constant, the ISO brightness of pulp was increased from 45.24% to 54.10% and ink elimination ratio at 950 nm of pulp was increased to 69.12% with 1% sodium hydroxide and 1% (as active oxygen content) hydrogen peroxide usage. However, when sodium percarbonate was utilized instead of hydrogen peroxide (as 1% active oxygen content) without alkaline addition, the ISO brightness of the pulp was increased to 55.00%. Also, unlike the other bleaching agents, a favorable effect of sodium percarbonate on ink detachment was observed. The ink elimination ratio of floated pulp was increased to 74.31% with 1% (active oxygen) sodium percarbonate addition without alkaline usage. There were no additive effects of sodium perborate usage on brightness, and ERIC value of pulp could be determined. In this respect, sodium percarbonate utilization without sodium hydroxide addition was proposed for effective repulping, deinking, and prebleaching of waste papers, in a similar manner to the use of hydrogen peroxide.