Chemical pulp production; focus on the environmentally friendly and economical modern processes

Increasing environmental pressure and efforts to make pulp production processes more economical and efficient are driving pulp producers to adopt the best available technologies (BAT). As technology moves towards totally integrated mill concepts, engineers are looking at the possibilities of integrating the kraft process to achieve an ecologically balanced pulp mill, which aims at balancing production and consumption of chemicals by onsite integration. The modern kraft mill can be very environmentally benign by using the process integration and best available technologies discussed in this paper. The process alternatives presented are based on the literature on modern pulp mills and the studies done by the authors. The concepts presented are mature techniques, which can be used for optimizing the chemical balance and overall transportations and thereby improving the economy and at the same time reducing emissions by waste utilization.