Kemira’s new dry strength additive resolves packaging and board production challenges unlike any other solution before. The new Fennobond 4000 series represents a completely new chemistry for synthetic strengtheners.
With a strong heritage in leading edge synthetic technologies for tissue and towel manufacturing, Kemira has applied this know-how to develop something new for packaging and board manufacturing. “We have been systematically developing a novel technology that is based on standard chemistry synthesized in a novel, intelligent way, creating a new generation strengthener,” says Kimmo Strengell, global product line manager at Kemira.
Synthetic strength additives have been around for decades in North America but they are not yet so widely used in Europe. “We had a great deal of fundamental understanding about the chemistry from our Fennobond 3000 development. The 4000 series incorporates that understanding. As a global company, we can take advantage of technology transfer like this,” says Darren Swales, North America’s application group manager at Kemira.
Works for both recycled and virgin
There are good strength additives on the market, but increasingly they cannot meet the challenges package and board manufacturers face. “Our target is to provide an extension to currently available strength technologies,” remarks Strengell.
Existing strength additives tend to be sensitive to water hardness and strongly closed processes. “Usually high calcium content in water has a negative effect on the most common dry strength agents. Efficiency of starch also decreases in high calcium hardness environments. The Fennobond 4000 series is absolutely insensitive to those conditions,” says Bernd Hauschel, team leader of wet-end chemistry at Kemira.
Recycled materials and closed circuit production also introduce contaminants that reduce the effectiveness of conventional strength additives. High conductivity caused by a high concentration of inorganic salts also works against other strengthening additives. The Fennobond 4000 series is very resilient in such tough environments.
Virgin board makers don’t have the same contamination issues as with recycled material, but their concerns are related to finding lighter base weight solutions to reduce the amount of fiber content while maintaining or increasing the strength of the finished board. Here, too, the Fennobond 4000 series is able to provide the extra strengthening needed.
Excellent properties
The Fennobond 4000 series is demonstrating excellent performance in strength improvement and in the ability to resist system variation. Moreover, fiber, fines and filler retention is also enhanced. In addition to product performance, product characteristics such as shelf-life and dry solids content have been significantly improved over current technologies.
The dry solids content of a chemical has a major impact on logistics. The lower it is, the more water content there is. This directly impacts the product weight and volume, and therefore freight costs. Existing synthetic strength additives usually do not exceed 10 percent dry solids content. The Fennobond 4000 series has already achieved a level of 21 percent at this stage.
A second key characteristic is shelf-life. Before now, synthetic strength additives have been fairly unstable. Their shelf-life is no more than a few weeks at most. The Fennobond 4000 series, however, is remarkably stable. Its shelf-life is measured in months.
>> Read more about Fennobond 4000X
Text: Randel Wells
This is a summary of an article published in Waterlink, Kemira´s stakeholder magazine´s issue 3/2010.