NEWSPRINT PAPERMACHINE TRIALS WITH POLYOXYETHYLENE AS A WET-END ADDITIVE.

In the reported experiments, five mills trials were conducted to evaluate polyoxyethylene (PEO) as a wet-end additive for newsprint and groundwood-specialty manufacture, and an additional trial was run to determine the effectiveness of PEO addition at a save-all. On the paper machines, PEO addition increased fines retention up to 10%. An increase in opacity of the paper of up to 4% was observed. PEO was not very effective in some furnishes; in such cases the concurrent upstream addition of water soluble phenolic resin resulted in improved performance. On the save-all a four-fold increase in flotation was observed with the addition of 1. 5 mg/L PEO. Recommendations are made on the methodology of a PEO trial.