STUDIES OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF FILLERS USED IN PAPERMAKING

Abstract

Fillers play an important role in papermaking process. As the prices of all inputs are rising a papermaker has a tremendous pressure to achieve a good and competitive quality paper at a lower cost. As scenario has changed today, mills are changing their papermaking process from acidic to neutral/alkaline medium to achieve the benefits of neutral/alkaline papermaking process. In India, Talc is mostly used filler for the production of writing and printing paper due to its low cost. Due to quality competencies and globalization of market, Indian paper industries, after switching over to neutral or alkaline paper making, have started using GCC or PCC. Sizing performance decreases on loading the paper with GCC or PCC in comparison with Talc loaded paper. Optical properties of PCC loaded sheets are better than GCC & Talc. PCC loaded sheets exhibits superior bulk, opacity while the strength properties were inferior as compared to those loaded with Talc and GCC. This work is an effort to study the Talc, Ground Calcium Carbonate (GCC) and Precipitated Calcium Carbonate (PCC); three mostly used fillers in papermaking in India.