With the improvement of product quality, the reduction of production cost and the development of new application fields, nano-calcium carbonate will have a broader market prospect.
A few days ago, the reporter saw the legendary "stone paper" at the site where the large-scale production base of Earth Guardian Stone Paper was officially put into production in Wangqing County, Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin Province. The texture is dense and the color is yellow. Compared with traditional paper, it is no different when writing, and it feels smoother and tougher, and it is less prone to soaking, oil soaking and tearing.
According to Zhang Chongwu, executive director of Earth Guardian (Dalian) Stone Paper Technology Co., Ltd., this kind of "stone paper" with independent intellectual property rights is made of calcium carbonate, the most abundant mineral resource in the earth's crust, with less than 20% polymer materials and various inorganic substances as auxiliary raw materials. The energy consumption per unit production is two-thirds of that of the traditional papermaking process, and there is no need for strong acid and alkali, bleaching, sewage and waste gas discharge in the production process. At present, their technology has been authorized by 2 invention patents and 6 utility model patents.
During the "two sessions" of the country this year, pads, writing boards, handbags and other items made of this kind of stone paper were placed on the desks of deputies. Now, after Wangqing production base is put into production, the first phase mainly produces new paper bags with an annual production capacity of 200,000 tons.
In the clean workshop of Wangqing stone paper production base, several production lines have been started. Narrow ivory stone paper is evenly pulled out from special equipment, and a spacious master batch warehouse is built in the aisle separated from the production car to store the main raw material of stone paper-granular modified limestone. There is no supporting large-scale water inlet or drainage equipment inside and outside the plant, no sour smell, no cooking, washing, bleaching and other links, which is completely different from the manufacturing process of plant fiber paper.
In recent years, researchers all over the world are seeking and experimenting with new papermaking technologies. Among them, the papermaking technology with calcium carbonate as raw material has been studied by some enterprises and scientific research institutions in the United States, Japan and China, and different methods or processes have been adopted. However, the previous stone paper technology and products generally need to add about 50% chemical raw materials, and the content of calcium carbonate does not exceed 50%. Compared with the traditional paper-making technology, there is not much advantage in environmental protection and cost, so it is usually experimental production with only a very low output.
Breakthroughs in the manufacturing technology of Earth Guardian stone paper are as follows: First, the two major difficulties of film formation of high calcium carbonate products and ultra-high strength of stone paper have been overcome for the first time in the Mainland, and the calcium carbonate content in stone paper products has risen to 85%, making it a real "stone paper"; Second, the grinding technology of stone powder raw materials and the manufacturing or transformation technology of production equipment have been developed at the same time; Third, the stone paper product line has been formed simultaneously, and more than 80 products in 5 categories have been formed at present; Fourth, the core degradation control technology has been successfully improved, and the degradation time can be controlled above 3 months, half a year, several years, 50 years or 100 years respectively.
"This has opened the process of large-scale industrialization of stone paper and achieved a leap from exhibits to products." Dong Suocheng, chief researcher of knowledge innovation base of Institute of Geographical Sciences and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said. As of May this year, Earth Guardian has established eight production bases in China, and two production bases under construction in Huadian, Jilin and Kuandian, Liaoning will be put into operation at the end of this year, when the three bases can achieve an annual production capacity of about 300,000 tons.
continuous innovation
Increase the application and promotion.
According to Zhang Chongwu, by 20 12, they will build a production base with an annual output of 360,000 tons of 15 and five production bases with an annual output of 1 10,000 tons of modified calcium carbonate raw materials, with a total annual production capacity of 5.4 million tons, which can replace10.6 cubic meters of wood on average. By 20 12, 5.4 million tons of production capacity can replace 8.64 million cubic meters of wood, saving water/kloc-0.08 billion cubic meters, reducing waste water by 650 million tons, saving electricity/kloc-0.89 billion kwh and reducing carbon dioxide/kloc-0.48 million tons every year.
More valuable, stone paper products have the core performance of plastic packaging. According to the inspection report issued by Dalian Railway Station, in the national quality supervision and inspection of light industrial plastic products in 2009, the stone paper shopping bags trial-produced by Wangqing Base all met the national standards for plastic shopping bags, and a trial-produced stone paper film roll also passed the inspection requirements of tensile strength, right-angle tear strength and other items, and the cost price was lower than that of similar products 15%. It is understood that the Yanbian government of Jilin Province will promote the use of environmentally friendly stone paper bags instead of plastic shopping bags in the whole state by means of subsidies and incentives.
But at present, the proportion of stone paper industrialization projects in the whole paper industry in China is still very small. This is not only because it is still in the promotion stage as a new technology, but also because the early investment in project research and development and equipment development is high, which improves the entry threshold of the industry. Moreover, whether stone paper can be successfully applied to large-scale publishing and printing remains to be tested in practice. Some experts also reminded that although there is no need for logging in the manufacturing process of stone paper, products can replace plastic bags in large quantities, thus reducing oil consumption. However, from the whole life cycle of products, wood and straw used in ordinary papermaking are renewable resources, while limestone, the main raw material of stone paper, is a non-renewable resource despite its large reserves and wide distribution, so we must pay attention to moderate mining.
Therefore, experts pointed out that this also requires relevant departments and enterprises to continue to increase investment in science and technology, not only to further improve the performance and application scope of stone paper products, but also to continuously innovate and further promote the development of papermaking technology in the direction of low carbon and environmental protection.