Effects of Optical Brightening Agent on the Chemical Degradation Characteristics of Paper Cellulose

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of optical brightening agents (OBA) on the chemical degradation characteristics of paper cellulose during humid heating aging. Three different types of OBAs were applied to a filter paper by dipping it in OBA solutions whose concentrations were controlled to 1% and 2%. The filter papers with an OBA were artificially aged at 80℃ and 65% RH, and the changes in pH of paper and viscosity of cellulose were evaluated. Their functional groups were also analyzed by ATR-FTIR (attenuated total reflectance fourier transform infrared spectroscopy).It was found that OBAs influenced the chemical degradation of paper cellulose during humid heating aging. Higher concentration of OBA solutions accelerated the degradation of paper cellulose. Especially, after aging for 12 days, the paper cellulose treated with the tetra-type OBA were the most significantly aged among the three types of OBAs. It was assumed that pH of OBA solutions affected the aging characteristics.

Effect of Carrier Chemicals on the Optical Properties of Paper Surface-Sized with Fluorescent Whitening Agents

“…In addition, many consumers have considered FWAs to be toxic, despite the lack of clear evidence for this assessment. Therefore, papermakers should minimize the amount of FWAs added in the papermaking process by improving the FWAs' whitening effect; they should also expect the simultaneous reduction in production costs (Jeong et al 2014) and improvement of paper quality (Lee et al 2015b) in the surface-sizing process.…”

“…The FWAs used in paper mills can be classified into three types, according to their applications (Weaver 1997;Holmberg 1999;Lee et al 2015b). Internal FWAs, such as di-sulpho FWA (D-FWA), are added into the stock directly.…”