The present invention is related to a method and apparatus for feeding a chemical into a liquid flow. The method and apparatus of the invention are particularly well applicable to homogeneous adding of a liquid chemical into a liquid flow. Preferably the method and apparatus according to the invention are used for feeding a retention aid into fiber suspension going to the headbox of a paper machine.
Naturally, there is practically an innumerable amount of prior art methods of feeding various chemicals into liquid flows. These methods may be divided into a few main categories, though, as seen from the following. Firstly, it is quite possible to just let the liquid to be added flow freely into a second liquid without employing any special regulation or mixing means. This method of adding cannot be employed in situations where the mixing ratio or homogeneity is of significance. Neither can it be employed in situations where the price of the chemical to be added is of significance. The next applicable method is to feed the chemical in a strict proportion to the liquid flow, whereby correct and economical proportioning is obtained. However, even in this case one has to take into account that usually the proportion of the chemical is slightly excessive compared to the optimal proportioning, because the mixing is known to be inadequate. The mixing may be improved, though, by feeding the chemical e.g. through a perforated wall of a flow channel, whereby the chemical to be mixed may at least be spread throughout the liquid flow. Lastly, a situation may be considered, where the chemical is fed in a strict proportion either into the liquid flow on the upper-flow side of the mixer or through the mixer itself into the liquid. In that case, the efficiency of the mixing of the chemical into the liquid flow is totally dependent on the mixer design.
Papermaking is in its own way a very demanding special field when chemical mixing is concerned. When using paper chemicals, it is good to bear in mind that their precise and homogeneous mixing is of vital importance in the short circulation of a paper machine. Homogeneous mixing means in a direct sense better quality and homogeneity of paper. At the same time, the process may be carried out without disturbances and problems. Poor mixing, on the other hand, requires chemical overdosing, which may increase the production costs remarkably. It is self-evident that in case of poor mixing, the quality of the paper and the operation of the process are not satisfactory. The existing mixing technique utilizes, on the one hand, clean water fractions both as dilution waters and as so-called feeding liquid which is used in order to intensify the mixing. On the other hand, efforts are made to close the water circulations of paper mills, whereby the feeding dosage of clean water into the system should be decreased, and internally clarified fractions or some non-treated direct flow from the process, such as e.g. filtrates, should be used instead. The existing systems for the mixing of chemicals do not allow or allow only to a small extent the use of water fractions of internal processes.
An essential case of mixing relating to paper manufacture is the mixing of a retention aid into fiber suspension flow going to the head-box of a paper machine. In paper manufacture, retention chemicals are used especially in order to improve the retention of fines at the wire part of the paper machine. As retention aid a chemical is used, long molecular chains of which bind together solid matter particles of the pulp and thus prevent the fines from passing, during the web formation stage, together with water through the wire. The retention aid should be mixed into the pulp as homogeneously as possible in order to gain the maximum effect of the chemical and to avoid variation of paper characteristics caused by retention fluctuations. Mixing, on the other hand, means that the liquid is subjected to a turbulent flow, the shearing forces of which break/may break long molecular chains, which naturally weakens the effect of the retention aid. Nevertheless, there are different kinds of retention aids. Sensitive to the effects of a turbulent flow are, e.g., polyacrylic amides, broken molecular chains of which are not known to be restored to their former length after the turbulence has attenuated, but there are also retention aids (e.g. polyethyleneimines), molecular chains of which are restored to their essentially original length shortly after the turbulence has attenuated.
In the short circulation of a paper machine, the feed point of the retention aid depends to a great extent on the retention aid used, the state of the flow from the feed point to the headbox lip, and the pulp used. The introduction of retention aids sensitive to shearing forces usually takes place immediately after a means (that may be a pump, a screen or a centrifugal cleaner) that causes shearing forces and is placed prior to the headbox, the feeding being carried out either into one spot or e.g. into the accept pipe of each pressure screen. It is also possible to use several retention aids of various types at the same time and introduce them into the fiber suspension by stages. The part of retention aids which is resistant to shearing forces may be fed as early as into the high-consistency pulp or prior to the headbox feed pump, and the part of retention aids which is sensitive to shearing forces is usually introduced not until the fiber suspension feed pipe prior to the headbox.
At present, as feeders of retention aids two types of apparatus are mainly used. A simpler apparatus (
It is characteristic of retention aids and their introduction that the retention aids are delivered to paper mills, in addition to liquid form, also as powders which are used depending on the paper to be made and the material to be used in an amount of about 200-500 g per one paper ton. A retention aid in powder form is mixed into fresh water in a special mixing tank in a proportion of 1 kg of powder to about 200 liters of clean water. This is because retention aids are known to react with, that is to stick onto, all solid matter particles in the flow very quickly, in about a second, which means that the dilution liquid has to be as clean as possible. In other words, in this stage, per 1 ton of produced paper 40-100 liters of clean water is used for retention aid production. Consequently, the consumption per day is, depending on the production of the paper machine, 10-100 cubic meters (here the production is estimated to be 250-1000 tons of paper per day). Nevertheless, this first dissolution stage is not the stage where water is used at the most, as in prior art processes this retention aid solution is further diluted into, e.g., one fifth of its concentration, which in practice means that for this so-called secondary dilution 200-500 liters of clean water is used per 1 paper ton. This results in a calculated daily consumption of 50-500 cubic meters of clean water per one paper machine.
In other words, until now it has been accepted that for the dilution of the retention aid per one paper machine hundreds of cubic meters of clean water is needed per day. Nevertheless, this has to be understood as a clear drawback, especially in cases when the paper mill is known to have great amounts of various circulation waters available, which might be utilized for this purpose, too. The only precondition for the use of circulation waters is that there should be a way to prevent retention chemicals from reacting with the solid matter in the circulation waters.
On the one hand, one has to bear in mind that the short circulation of a paper machine employs, due to large amounts of liquid, large-sized pipes. For example, as a feed pipe of the headbox of a paper machine, a pipe with a diameter of about 1000 mm may be used. This is one of the reasons why mixing a relatively small additional flow, such as a diluted retention aid, homogeneously into a wide flow channel is problematic.
On the other hand, the construction of the above described, presently used retention aid feeding apparatuses is very simple. When considering their operational efficiency, i.e. the homogeneity of the mixing, one might even say that they are too simple. In other words, the simplicity of the apparatus and the feeding method of chemicals, resulting in non-homogeneous dosing and also degradation of chemical molecules, inevitably lead to remarkable overdosing of chemicals, as the basic goal inevitably is to achieve a certain wire retention on a paper machine.
A further evident problem discovered in prior art processes is connected with the most traditional way of mixing the retention aid into the fiber suspension, that is prior to the headbox screen. Because the reaction time of a retention aid was known to be short, the headbox screen was considered a magnificent place for homogeneous and quick mixing of the retention aid into the pulp. And so it was when headbox screens of old art where used, which had a hole drum as a screening member. But now, with slot drums conquering the market, it has been discovered that the retention aid is capable of forming flocks prior to the slot drum, and thus a great amount of both the retention aid and the fines of the fiber suspension otherwise usable is, at best, rejected or, at worst, clogs the fine slots of the slot drum.
As noticed from above, numerous drawbacks and disadvantages have been discovered for example in the feed of retention chemicals. For solving e.g. the above mentioned problems of prior art, a new method and apparatus have been developed, which allow feeding into the liquid flow even chemicals consisting easily degrading polymeric chains, for instance retention chemicals, so that the polymeric chains remain non-degraded to a remarkably larger extent than before. As another advantage of the method and apparatus according to the invention we may mention, e.g., a substantial decrease in the consumption of fresh water in a paper mill, when desired, and an essentially more efficient and homogeneous mixing of retention aids into the fiber suspension.
The characterizing features of the method and apparatus of the invention are defined by the appended patent claims.
In the following, the method and apparatus according to the invention are disclosed in more detail with reference to the appended figures, where
a, 1b and 1c illustrate prior art retention aid feeding apparatuses,
a and 8b illustrate an arrangement of a retention aid feeding-/mixing apparatus in connection with the fiber suspension flow channel according to a third preferred embodiment of the invention,
According to
In
An advantage of separate feeding through flow path 162 is that by changing the amount of the feed, the effect of the liquid discharging from inner pipe 62 on the mixing of the chemical may be regulated. For instance, by introducing a large amount of liquid through inner pipe 62, the retention chemical is made to penetrate deeper into the fiber suspension flow. Accordingly, by feeding in a smaller amount of liquid through inner pipe 62, the penetration of the retention chemical is reduced, too.
Further, it is worth mentioning that in a solution according to both
As a further preferred embodiment of the apparatus according to the invention, the improvements made in the feeding-/mixing apparatuses of
A further additional modification of the feeding-/mixing apparatus according to the invention is to arrange at the end of the inner pipe of member 60 or at the end of pipe 62 arranged inside member 60 a nozzle head which closes the opening of pipe 62 at the axis, leaving an essentially annular slot between itself and the rims of the pipe opening. This construction insures that the liquid jet discharging from pipe 62 is well-spreading and of essentially conical form.
a and 8b illustrate still a further alternative solution for the construction of a mixing apparatus according to the invention. The solution is mainly based on a round pipe according to
As for the feeding-/mixing apparatus described above, one has to understand that, although it is most preferably operating and located when fastened directly in the flow channel wall, whereby the mixing of the retention chemical into the “whip water” may be carried out practically at the interface of the feeding-/mixing apparatus and the flow channel, it is, of course, possible to place the feeding-/mixing apparatus according to the invention further away from the fiber suspension flow channel. A precondition for this is, however, that all the liquids used in the mixing are clean waters, i.e. without suspended matters that the retention chemical might react with. In other words, by essentially increasing the consumption of clean water, the mixing of the retention chemical into the whip water may be arranged to take place further away from the fiber suspension flow channel leading to the headbox. At the same time, almost all advantages mentioned above may be obtained. The only disadvantage, apart from the increasing consumption of clean water, is a slightly harder treatment of the retention chemical in the stage when it is actually mixed into the fiber suspension.
When the mixing apparatus is placed further away from the fiber suspension flow channel, the retention aid has time enough to be completely mixed into to the so-called whip water, whereby, when this discharges into the fiber suspension flow duct, part of the retention chemicals is subjected to shearing forces strong enough to cause part of the polymeric chains to degrade and the retention chemical to possibly lose some of its effect.
Nevertheless, when the mixing of the retention chemical into the so-called whip water in the actual feeding-/mixing apparatus has been carried out gently, i.e. by feeding the retention chemical in a tangential flow through an annular opening 64 into the whip water discharging from an outer annular opening 58 at an exactly appropriate speed so that practically no injuriously great shear forces are generated between the liquids, the retention chemical is not damaged prior to the actual mixing into the fiber suspension, whereby practically the whole retention aid with its total effect is still usable when being mixed into the fiber suspension.
In addition to the embodiments described above, it is, of course, possible to arrange a special mechanical mixer (not shown) in connection with the mixing apparatus, by means of which mixer the retention chemical solution is mixed into the feeding liquid. When applying this method, a mixing apparatus according to
As may be seen from the above, a new method of feeding and mixing a retention chemical into fiber suspension flow has been developed. Referring to what has been stated here, one has to notice that the figures illustrate many different embodiments of the invention suitable to be used together depending on what is needed. Further, one has to notice that although the invention has been illustrated in the text only in connection with the mixing of retention chemicals in paper manufacturing, the invention may be utilized also in other connections demanding homogeneous and, at the same time, gentle mixing of a chemical into a liquid. Further one has to notice that none of the embodiments illustrated in the figures excludes the possibility that the arrangement to be applied and protected by the patent claims might be simpler than the entity illustrated in the figures. Thus, the field of application and the scope of protection of the invention are described by the appended patent claims only.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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980437 | Feb 1998 | FI | national |
This application is a divisional of U.S. application Ser. No. 10/127,701 filed on Apr. 23, 2002 now U.S. Pat. No. 7,234,857, which in turn is a continuation-in-part (CIP) of U.S. application Ser. No. 09/622,872 filed on Aug. 24, 2000 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,659,636) which is the U.S. National Phase application of PCT/FI99/00145 filed Feb. 24, 1999 claiming priority benefits from Finnish Application 980437 filed on Feb. 26, 1998, the entire content of each prior filed application being expressly incorporated hereinto by reference.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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Child | 11802138 | US |
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Parent | 09622872 | US | |
Child | 10127701 | US |