The role of organic matter lost in kraft pulping material balances

Efficiency improvement in a pulp mill includes minimisation of environmental discharges simultaneously with the development of pulp quality and production economy. Material balances in production processes, including fate of sidestreams, are key in proceeding these matters. Different approaches of determining the material balances increase understanding of process behaviour. We have focused on measuring sidestream (carryovers, washing water, filtrate) dissolved organic matter (DOM) in fibreline unit process blocks of softwood ECF bleached kraft production. The DOM was analysed by traditional wastewater methods (volatile solids, organic carbon, chemical oxygen demand). The measured data was combined with primarily simulated water balances and routine operational mill data in a simulation model. From this balance, yield estimate included, lost organic matter through complete degradation (CD) and volatile organic compounds (VOC) can be calculated throughout the fibreline. The sensitivity of this considerable amount (23-35 kgDVS/adt in total) to various factors is discussed in this paper.