Denser pressing trials with pulp

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32666, 23 July 1971, Page 16

Denser pressing trials with pulp

The Wool Research Organisation’s highpressure dump press, which has been located in the Shaw Savill Line wool store at Lyttelton for the last three years, was being used to press pulp used in the paper industry this week. Mr M. Clark, pulp mill superintendent for Caxton Paper Mills, Ltd, of Kawerau, who was at Lyttelton for. the tests With pulp, said that in their industry they had a position which was parallel with wool. They were interested in denser dumping with better freight rates in mind. So similar work to that of the Wool Research Organisation had been carried out. He said that they had to be able to put up a proposition. They had to be able to say what they could do and then look at the proposition in the light of any freight-rate concessions that could be obtained.

Pulp is now exported in 3001 b to 5001 b bales. The bales are made of kraft paper. The man responsible for building the 500-ton press, Mr D. J. Davis, was in Lyttelton to watch the tests. The'press was built by Davis Hydraulics, Ltd, which is now wholly owned by U.E.B. Mr Davis remains a consultant to U.E.B. and also has a business called Davis Industrial Equipment Ltd, and is interested in the pulp-and-paper industry. One of the aims involved in the design of the press at Lyttelton, fie said, was to tum out bales that would fill a container to maximum capacity. He said that the indications were that there was no difficulty in sorting wool that had been dense dumped and also there was no apparent physical damage to fibres. The bales were also easier to stack. For many years, he said, wool had been shipped from South America after being high-density pressed. He said that several 200ton presses had been sent to

Australia where a recent development had been triple dumping, in which three bales were put into one. Of denser dumping of pulp, he said that one of the mains aims of investigations was to determine the optimum moisture content of pulp to reduce the packages to the smallest size for freight-rate saving. He mentioned that there were possibilities of developing a 1000-ton or even 1200-ton press for this purpose.

The press at Lyttelton was originally built for a consortium. It was accepted by the consortium in April, 1968, and moved to Lyttelton later that year. Now the press is owned by the Wool Research Organisation and it is to be moved again to the site of the Organisation at Lincoln. Results are expected shortly of investigations made by the Organisation into high presure dumping. The photograph shows the press at Lyttelton.