Overview
Paper quality is said to be made in the pulp mill, according to an old adage. Today's greatest difficulty for any virgin pulp manufacturer is to produce high-quality pulp while minimizing negative effects on our ecosystem, which includes our water bodies, groundwater levels, and surrounding environment. In the first place, Naini is an environmentally beneficial paper mill because the raw material it uses to create paper is agricultural waste, such as bagasse and wheat straw. It is to our credit that the quality of writing-printing paper made from agricultural waste is comparable to that of wood-based paper. Some of our goods, for example, have a brightness of up to 94 percent.
Our modern pulp mill is the key to this achievement. Some of the key technologies employed in our paper mills are described below:
A) WET STORAGE
Every cellulosic raw material is degradable. Naini must stockpile bagasse during the lean months because the raw material is seasonal. Our mills' wet storage method was created locally and is the most cost-efficient, practical, and effective way of storing bagasse for a long time without compromising the quality of the raw material.
B) WET WASHING
The raw material is thoroughly washed in our indigenously designed wet washing system which removes all the dust and foreign material from the raw material. This helps in the optimization of cooking and bleaching chemicals.
C) CONTINUOUS PULPING
The pulp mills have a state-of-the-art continuous digester that saves money and improves quality. The most significant benefit of a continuous digester is the uniform and consistent quality of pulp, as well as the efficient use of cooking chemicals. This technology has a very low carbon footprint.
D) OXYGEN DELIGNIFICATION (ODL)
If one has to identify a single technology that has contributed maximum towards the improvement in pulp quality along with the improvement in environmental performance, it will certainly be ODL. Naini developed this technology to suit the requirement of agro-based pulp mills by doing a lot of in-house R&D. Initially, this technology was used in wood-based pulp mills. Naini was a pioneer in adopting this technology in an agro-based pulp mill. The process and equipment engineering was carried out in-house in consultation with the world’s leading company Sulzer, which supplied the critical equipment for this technology.
The main advantages of ODL are as below:
- Reduction in COD of bleach plant effluent by 35%
- Reduction in chlorine consumption by 35 to 40%
- Improvement in the brightness of pulp
- Improvement in strength properties of pulp
E) BLEACHING
A multi-stage bleaching plant aids in the production of brilliant pulp (ISO 88 percent ). For lower load in the effluent and improved pulp brightness, the bleaching process includes oxygen and Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) in addition to Chlorine and Hypo.