The need for deinking mills to reduce their fresh water consumption has resulted in higher loads of various contaminants in the process water. Lower recovered paper quality also leads to higher contamination levels in the mills. This higher load has an influence on achievable target brightness. The objective of the work was to determine and explain the main reasons for relatively poor deinked pulp quality or poor deinking potential based on the influence of recovered paper composition and process water quality. The process water parameters significantly affect the deinking potential of recovered paper. The test results showed the negative effects of increased water hardness. For standard recovered paper mixtures, flotation selectivity is higher with increasing flotation pH-value. Good results were realized for standard recovered paper with low hardness, low surface tension, and high pH-value. The results for recovered paper containing flexo newsprint could be slightly improved with low hardness, low surface tension, and low pH-value. The results of the test program using design of experiments showed interacting effects of pH-value and surface tension on luminosity and flotation selectivity.
Index to US Geological Survey computer files containing daily values for water parameters to September 30, 1971: Central region