Literature

In the "Products & Services" section of the Abbey Newsletter for December, two new products are described that extend the life of unstable papers in long-term storage. The first is a boxboard marketed for the first time in 1992 by Conservation Resources, which contains not only calcium carbonate but activated carbon as a filler in one of its layers. According to aging tests done by or for the supplier, this makes the materials more effective than ordinary buffered board at absorbing gaseous pollutants either given off by the paper as it ages or originating in the air out side. For information call Conservation Resources International, 800/634-6932.

The second product, not yet on the market, is designed for archival storage of baseball cards, which are made of poor materials but sometimes command impressive prices on collectors' markets. They are encapsulated in thick polyester (PET) with an argon atmosphere inside to prevent oxidation. Each card is held in a mat that shows the corners and both the front and back sides. Set into the mat is a little packet of oxygen absorber, an oxygen detector and an acid detector. This whole assembly is inside the encapsulation, which is imprinted with a customer support number and the date the document was sealed inside. For information call Everseal Preservation Labs, 800/262-9269, in Bozeman, Montana.

Diccionario Terminológico Iberoamericano de Celulosa, Papel, Cart6n y sus Derivados (Iberoamerican Terminological Dictionary of Pulp, Paper, Board and Their Manufactures) by J.L. Asenjo, P. Barbadillo and P.G. Montort. Comision Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnologia. (No place, no date.) Announcement was received March 1993 from Asociacion de Investigacion Tecnica de la Industria Papelera Española (Avenida Padre Huidobro, s/n. 28040 Madrid). Available for 15,000 pts. (IVA incl.) from Asociacion de Investigacion Tecnica de la Industria Papelera Española, Apartado de Correos n° 33045, 28080 Madrid, Spain.

This dictionary gives equivalents in English, French, German, Italian and Portuguese, in addition to Spanish usage in major Latin American countries. Part of a page of English terms is reproduced in the flyer that came in the mail. To judge by the careless way in which this was done, this dictionary may not be very reliable for English readers. Here are some examples of the spelling: Comercial pulp quantity, Commom yew, Compressibibility. They have one sequence of words and phrases that start out with the word color, spelled color, and another sequence starting with colour. And is manufactures really the English word for derivados?

"Discrimination of Fragmentary Paper for the Field of Forensic Science," by S. Kobayashi, H. Miyata and M. Kudo. Japan Tappi 1. 46, No. 10, Oct. 1992, pp. 13-21 (In Japanese). Describes methods used by the Japanese Metropolitan Police Department to characterize fragments of paper in cases of banknote forgery, document duplication, arson and murder. These methods include analysis of coatings and filler in woodfree and mechanical paper.

ANSI/ASQC Q90-1987 Series: Quality Management and Quality Assurance Standards. Published by ASQC Distributed by ASTM. This set of five American national standards on quality management and quality assurance is identical to the ISO 9000 standards. The set includes:

ANSI/ASQC Q90-1987. Quality Management and Quality Assurance Standards{Guidelines for Selection and Use

ANSI/ASQC Q91-1987. Quality Systems Model for Quality Assurance in Design/Development, Production, Installation, and Servicing

ANSI/ASQC Q92-1987. Quality Systems Model for Quality Assurance in Production and Installation

ANSI/ASQC 093-1987. Quality Systems Model for Quality Assurance in Final Inspection and Test

ANSI/ASQC Q94-1987. Quality Management and Quality System Elements--Guidelines

List price $59; ASTM members $47; PCN: 29-000389-34; 15-day free examination period. Order from ASTM, 1916 Race St., Philadelphia, PA 19103-1187 (215/299-5585; fax 977-9679).

A two-page editorial by Helen Burgess in the Journal of the International Institute for Conservation - Canadian Group v. 15, 1990 (published early 1992) explains the Journal's choice of a permanent paper (Mohawk Superfine) for Volumes 14 and 15, and gives background on papermaking, permanence and recycled content. Helen Burgess is a paper scientist at the Canadian Conservation Institute in Ottawa.

"Product Guide: Book Papers." Paper Focus 6 no. 66, March 1992, p. 29, 32-33. This Guide lists and systematically describes a large number of uncoated book papers (both for text and for specialty uses such as book jackets) available in Britain. For each paper, it indicates whether acid or alkaline.

"Chemico-Physical Processes and Quality Changes with the Ageing of Paper," by E. Hanecker, P.C. Le and R. Wilken. Wochenbl. Papierfabr. 120, No. 13, mid July 1992, 521-528 (In German). Reports experiments carried out at the Papiertechnische Stiftung (PTS) in Munich on changes in color and strength properties under accelerated aging for selected modern papers.

"Degradation Products Formed During Light and Heat Treatment of Spruce Groundwood," by B. Holmbom, R. Ekman and C. Eckerman. J. Pulp Paper Sci. 18 no. 4, July 1992, J146-J151. Samples were aged under two conditions: simulated sunlight and high temperature and humidity. The source and nature of the degradation products formed during yellowing were noted. Analysis was performed using gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy; some of the extracts were analyzed by size exclusion chromatography (SEC). The authors concluded that extractives do not contribute significantly to yellowing of spruce groundwood. Degradation products from exposure to light were mainly lignin-derived (vanillin and vanillic acid), while those resulting from aging for 16 hours with heat and humidity (100° C and 100% RH) were mainly carbohydrate-derived.

"A Study of the Mechanism of the Photo-Yellowing of Partially Acetylated Groundwood Pulps," by M. Ek et al. Nord. Pulp Pap. Res. J. 7, no. 3, Oct. 1992, 108-112. The Swedish Pulp and Paper Research Institute (STFl) used gas phase acetylation of groundwood pulp to study reaction mechanisms and to identify types of chemical structure involved in chromophore formation.

"Predicting Brightness Reversion in Paper with Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry," by J. G. Koloski. Paper presented at 1992 Papermakers Conference in Nashville. Pages 2130 in Book 1 of the Proceedings. FTIR is used at the U.S. Government Printing Office for rapid determination of lignin content because complaints had been received of rapid color reversion in some papers purchased for government agencies. The process is described.

"Overview of Surface Sizing Agents," by M.D. Pask. Paper presented at the 1992 TAPPI Sizing Short Course in Nashville. P. 9798 in the proceedings. Three chemical types of surface sizing agents, and their methods of use, are described: styrene maleic anhydride, polyurethanes and styrene acrylate.

"An Introduction to Graphic Arts Coatings." (An excerpt from GATF's 1991 TechnoEconomic White Paper entitled The Use of Coatings for Printing and Packaging.) GATFWORLD 5, Issue 2, Mar./Apr.1993, 2730. These are the coatings applied not by the papermaker, but by the printer, either before or after printing. They are described in general terms by function or enduse (primers, overprint varnishes, overprint coatings, barrier coatings, and specialized functional coatings), by drying method (solvent/moisture removal, crosslinking and polymerization), and by chemical type (solvent lacquers, oleoresins, aqueous systems, catalyzed systems, and two radiationcurable coatings, UV and EB).

Most barrier coatings seem to be applied to packaging materials rather than fine paper, but the overprint lacquers and coatings are used to enhance the esthetic appeal of the product, so must be used mainly on fine paper. Nitrocellulose resins are most typically used in solvent lacquer systems, but are increasingly regulated because of the flammable solvents they use. Oleoresinous coatings contain resins that yellow over time; they dry slowly and have other faults, but they are cheap. Acrylics are the resins most commonly used in aqueous coatings; they are environmentally friendly but energyintensive. Catalyzed coatings dry by thermally induced condensation polymerization, with an assist from acid catalysts. Ultraviolet radiation is used to cure certain polymeric films by crosslinking, to make them resistant to chemicals and abrasion. It dries the coating almost instantly but has faults, among them the difficulty of recycling paper thus coated. Electronbeam (EB) coatings make the paper resistant to water and solvents, work fast and use little energy, but are dangerous to work with.

For more information contact the GATF Technical Information Group at 412/6216941.

"Classification of Groundwood Grades of Paper (from Newsprint to HighGrade Coated) with an Outlook for the 1990s," by A. Classman. Pulp & Paper Canada 93:11, Nov. 1992, p. 4851. The author considers all the ways in which ground wood grades have been and could be classified and takes into account the recent developments like sizings, fillings, coatings of different weights, and "alphabet pulps."

Commentary: Something certainly needs to be done about paper classification. New kinds of pulps, changing enduser requirements and other factors have made such a shambles of terminology that people can hardly talk to each other seriously or at length without stopping to define each problem word. Gathering information about paper for databases, statistical compilations and paper catalogs is an exercise in frustration, and using those compilations and catalogs calls for a lot of guessing. Even when you call up the office of the editors or compilers to ask what they included in such and such a category, the person who answers the phone isn't likely to know, and isn't sure who does know. But whoever does eventually address this problem should not do it alone. Communication using words is necessarily a cooperative activity. Suppliers, consumers and producers should all work at it, and the big players should make some sort of commitment to use the result.

A commercially sponsored insert, presented as a pagedin "Tappi Journal Special Report," has annoyed some TAPPI members who don't like to see commercialism in their professional publications. It was sponsored by OMYA, the world's largest producer of ground calcium carbonate or GCC, but OMYA was invited to do it by TAPPI Journal, which hired someone to write it. The reference is

"Calcium Carbonate and the Evolution of Alkaline Papermaking in North America," by Douglas J. Burke. Tappi Journal 76 no.4, p. 40A, 40B40E. Tappi Journal Special Report. Sponsored by OMYA Inc.

In the same insert, on p. 40F40G, is an anonymous report of a survey conducted recently "on behalf of TAPPI," asking acid, neutral and alkaline mills about the relative strengths and weaknesses of five fillers (clay, cabined clay, PCC, GCC and TiO₂). There was only a 26.3% response, so the results are hardly worth summarizing here, except to say that GCC was (perhaps predictably) found to have fewer faults than any of the other fillers.

This publication is a competitive move by OMYA and possibly other GCC producers against the precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) industry, which has dominated the market for carbonate filler since 1985 or so when Pfizer (now Specialty Minerals, Inc.) began building PCC plants for the onsite manufacture of carbonate filler for alkaline paper. This made PCC more affordable, especially for the mills a long distance from sources of ground carbonate, which is dug from the ground. Demand for onsite plants has been high; for years Pfizer could not build them fast enough. Now, partly because of the recession, and partly because of unrealistic expectations about achieving high filler loadings with PCC alone, some of those plants are underutilized, though new ones are still being contracted for.

It has become apparent in the last few years that higher filler levels can be reached if the most widely used form of PCC, scalenohedral, is used in combination with GCC. Joerg Bleeck, of Columbia River Carbonates (which is now a joint venture in a complex arrangement with OMYA), in his letter to the editor of this newsletter, May 1990, cited a number of other expected benefits including improved drainage, higher machine speeds, reduced steam usage, increased strength, better sizing, decreased dye cost, and better color stability. Although some might argue that not all mills experience all these benefits when they add GCC to their filler mix, few would deny its usefulness or even necessity for some of these purposes, and in Europe, mills have been using chalk filler by itself for years.

Electronic Thesaurus of Pulp and Paper Terms. TAPPI has automated the Thesaurus of Pulp and Paper Terms to run on any DOS-based PC computer with 4 megabytes of spare memory, and is offering it for $134 to members, $200 nonmernbers. Call 800/ 3328686 (U.S.), 800/4469431 (Canada). The hard copy of the Thesaurus is available from either TAPPI or IPST for $95.