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Sustainable and Alternative Fibers Initiative

Capabilities and Facilities

SAFI team has complete access to the service center of the Tissue Pack innovation lab which has state-of-the-art equipment and highly trained scientists to provide world-class service for your technical and testing needs. Our group performs different analyses for granting high-quality results, below are some examples of the different tests and equipment used for achieving our goals.

Paper Testing

  • Basis weight, caliper, bulk, surface smoothness, brightness, opacity, color, and air permeability
  • Tensile strength (dry and wet), stretchability, and peel adhesion
  • Water absorption capacity and absorption rate
  • Compressibility and stiffness/flexibility
  • Friction and rub resistance

The Tissue Pack Innovation Lab has a TAPPI conditioned room with standard and advanced test equipment for performing the analysis.

  • Pulmac Zero-span and Short-span Tensile Tester
    • Study of fiber strength, length, and degree of bonding
  • Tissue Softness Analyzer (TSA) by Emtec Electronic
    • Multifunctional measuring instrument to assess the softness, elasticity, and compressibility of tissue and fabrics, as well as ball burst strength, thickness, and basis weight
  • Fiber Quality Analyzer (FQA)
    • Determination of fiber length, width, curl, kink, coarseness, fines content, shives content, and vessel content

Chemical Characterization

  • Kappa number
  • Viscosity of pulp
  • Pulp carbohydrates
  • Carboxylic acid group content
  • Surface charge
  • Metals analysis
  • Ash content
  • pH

Equipment for Furnish and Chemical Additive Optimization

  • Laboratory pulp refiners (PFI Mill and Valley Beater) and disk refiners
  • Freeness testers (Canadian Standard Freeness and Schopper-Riegler Freeness)
  • British handsheet former and square handsheet former
  • Automated dynamic sheet former (capability of doing multi-layered tissue sheets)
  • Britt Jar for drainage and retention studies
  • Positive Pulse Jar (PPJ) for flow effects studies such as associated with approach-flow shear, jet-wire speed difference, and hydrofoil action
  • Chemtrac ECA2000 and Mutek PCD03 for colloidal dissolved substances and charge determination
  • Brookfield viscometer equipped with a modified rotor with vertical probes to evaluate the strength of fiber flocs

Pilot Equipment for Process Optimization

  • State-of-the-art creping device
  • Pilot fourdrinier paper machine – a flexible machine to evaluate multiple furnishes, additives, and process conditions cost-effectively, capable of running low basis weight (~30 gsm) sheet
  • State-of-the-art stock preparation – re-pulping, mixing, thickening, screening, cleaning, and refining equipment
  • Sprout-Bauer Twin-Flo Stock Refiner – refining of stock at low consistency
  • Fiber recycling
  • Wet-end chemical additives system