Inside A Tissue Paper Mill

Tissue paper mills are the source of providing types of tissue papers across the world. With pieces of machinery, which are specifically designed for each product, millions of finished or semi-finished products enter the market.

Sections of a Mill

There are four main sections of a mill. They are listed as stock preparation, tissue machine, rewinder, and converting line.

Stock preparation is the name of the process where the incoming raw material – which can be a kind of pulp or fibers to make one – is made fit for transforming into the desired tissue paper material.

If the preferred raw material is the fibers, it must be processed into the pulp with the “pulper”. Pulper contains Pulp Dissolver where the pulp is – as the name suggests – dissolved.

In the next step, the dissolved pulp is sent to the Refiners, where the material is refined in various stages depending on the requested characteristics of the final product. Once this material passes through Blend Chest and Machine Chest, it is sent to the Tissue Machine where the actual process of tissue paper making begins.

Pieces of Tissue Paper Machinery

There are six parts of a tissue paper machinery that carry various processes. They are Headbox, Press Section, Hood, Yankee, Yankee Doctor, and Reel.

The “stock” that was made of fibers are sprayed into the headbox and distributed evenly along the width of the machine. The stock passes through the headbox to the Press Section.

The Press Section consists of two parts: Suction Roll and ViscoNip. The stock passes through them both. Suction Roll helps drain the felt before the press nip. In Visco Nip, the paper web is pressed using the felt and belt against the Yankee cylinder.

Yankee cylinder is heated up with steam thus the paper web attaches to the hot surface of the drying cylinder, letting the water evaporate through the paper web.

Next, the material goes into the Hood which is a dryer in which heated air is blown onto the paper web to increase drying. The air in the dryer is normally heated with gas burners.

With the Yankee Doctor machine, the Creping process takes place. The dried stock is achieved when the paper web is taken away from the drying cylinder using a steel blade.

Finally, the stock gets the closest to becoming a tissue paper and is rolled into a large cylinder during the Reel step. The tissue paper machine completes this step in only 1,5 seconds. Then the Rewinder section takes the stage.

Rewinding & Converting Tissue Paper

Rewinding has three steps in it. First, the piles are brought together using unwind stands. Then, calendaring is used to establish smoothness. Lastly, the rolls are slitted into the required width and diameters. The tissue paper roll is now ready to convert into a usable size and structure.

Converting step gives us the finished tissue paper products. Here, the larger sized rolls are cut down into smaller sizes. Rolls are un-winded using an embosser or laminator. The sheets can be imprinted in the desired pattern.

If producing toilet papers or paper towels, the sheets are winded on a cardboard core and we get the final product received out from the rewinder is called a log. Log Saw cuts the log into chosen widths.

At the end of all, the final tissue paper product is packed and shipped for public sale.