YOUR CHALLENGE:
Negative impact of air on process variability
It’s no secret that entrained air reduces drainage—and as a result efficiency—on every type of washer, leading to higher TCO and reduced pulp quality. But it’s not just growing customer demands and margin pressures creating urgency to solve this problem; you’re also under increased scrutiny to reduce water usage, discharge to landfills and BOD impact for more sustainable operations.
YOUR CHALLENGE:
Negative impact of air on process variability
It’s no secret that entrained air reduces drainage—and as a result efficiency—on every type of washer, leading to higher TCO and reduced pulp quality. But it’s not just growing customer demands and margin pressures creating urgency to solve this problem; you’re also under increased scrutiny to reduce water usage, discharge to landfills and BOD impact for more sustainable operations.
DID YOU KNOW?
The digital revolution could help the paper and forest products industry reduce the total cost base by as much as 15% and improve overall equipment effectiveness of existing technologies by 5%.2
SO WHAT?
Many mills simply accept current levels of air-driven variability. They push chemistry or water in response, then have to deal with high bleaching costs or dirty pulp. Others jump to capital investments, such as a new washer or evaporator train, if they see production getting bottlenecked. In either case, they’re generating additional capital or resource costs—without having solved for the original variation that caused the issues in the first place.
THE SOLUTION:
Eliminate entrained air as a disruptor
High entrained air levels create numerous problems in brown stock washing. But if your operators don’t know exactly how much air is in the system, they have to guess at solutions—which can lead to over- or underfed chemistry or unnecessary capital expenses. Instead, you need to eliminate entrained air as a disruptor within your process. Here’s how…
THE SOLUTION:
Negative impact of air on process variability
High entrained air levels create numerous problems in brown stock washing. But if your operators don’t know exactly how much air is in the system, they have to guess at solutions—which can lead to over- or underfed chemistry or unnecessary capital expenses. Instead, you need to eliminate entrained air as a disruptor within your process. Here’s how…
Identify, quantify and correlate real-time air variations in your processes
You need to capture direct, accurate readings of entrained air, so you can correlate real-time variations (i.e., peaks and valleys) with related process variables, such as vat levels, washer speeds, headbox pressures, conductivity and more.
Automate defoamer metering and proactively manage entrained air
After determining an entrained air target at which your mills perform optimally, you need to implement a closed-loop control process that automates defoamer metering to the system—at the exact time it’s needed—to proactively keep air levels within acceptable parameters.
2. “Pulp, paper, and packaging in the next decade: Transformational change,” Peter Berg and Oskar Lingqvist, McKinsey & Company, August, 2019.