Paper industry is one of the ten pillar manufacturing industries of my country's national economy. According to the State Council's "Twelfth Five-Year Plan for Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction", the planned emission reduction targets for the paper industry are "chemical oxygen demand emissions and ammonia nitrogen emissions to drop by 10% each". How does the paper industry accomplish this arduous task, and how will the paper chemical industry, which has grown up with the paper industry, seize this historical opportunity? Yao Xianping, chairman of the China Paper Chemical Industry Association and director of the National Engineering Research Center for Paper Chemicals Interviewed by reporters.

Yao Xianping told reporters that the papermaking process is a complex chemical and physical process. The whole process from pulping to papermaking is inseparable from the application of various special chemicals for energy saving and environmental protection in papermaking. For example, in the pulping process, chemical technology should be used to reduce pulping and cooking time and the amount of alkali, separate papermaking black liquor, recover lignin and other special organic polymer products, and develop safe and efficient new bleaching agents; in the papermaking process In the process, high-efficiency retention aid and retention aid technology should be adopted, and chemical and biological treatment of white water in papermaking should be carried out to achieve clean discharge, etc. Because the application of papermaking chemicals runs through the entire papermaking process, the technological progress of the former is of decisive significance to the cleaner production of the latter.

Yao Xianping said that the environmental dilemma faced by the paper industry is precisely the platform for paper chemicals to show their talents. The "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" will be a golden opportunity period for the rapid and stable development of my country's paper chemicals.

Yao Xianping pointed out that although my country's paper chemicals started late, they developed rapidly. Especially during the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" period, major products including modified starch, polyacrylamide, sizing agent, brightener, defoamer, and deinking agent have basically achieved localization. Due to the important role of papermaking chemicals in improving the quality, transformation and upgrading, energy conservation and emission reduction, resource conservation, and the development and application of high-grade paper and specialty paper in the papermaking industry, this emerging industry has attracted great attention from relevant national departments and has been listed in the national Catalogues of industries, products and technologies to be encouraged to develop, and guidelines for priority areas of high-tech industrialization. Especially in recent years, in order to change the inherent image of the paper industry with high consumption, high pollution and low efficiency, the domestic paper chemical research and development and production institutions with the National Paper Chemical Engineering Technology Research Center as the core have been engaged in the development and application of green paper chemicals. Active efforts have been made and a series of important results have been achieved.

For example, the development and application projects of special chemicals for non-wood papermaking were successfully implemented. The project consists of three topics: special reinforcement for non-wood fibers, drainage and retention aid for straw pulp papermaking, and special chemicals for the wet end of newsprint. It is jointly completed by Hangzhou Chemical Research Institute and Hangzhou Zhiyou Technology Co., Ltd. Using natural polymer (starch) as the basic raw material, the project team has successfully developed green chemicals that can be applied to non-wood fibers and waste paper fibers with high impurity content and poor fiber quality. The green and clean production process characterized by catalytic continuous powder pipeline reaction, no waste water is generated in the whole production process, high reaction efficiency, stable quality, low production cost, and obvious energy saving effect (average energy consumption is reduced by 5% to 15%). Widely popularized and applied in the domestic paper industry. The project has made outstanding contributions to promoting energy conservation and emission reduction in the industry and protecting forest resources, and won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award and the first prize of the former China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association Technology Invention Award.

Another technology achievement in the development and application of high-retention surface sizing starch, which has won the first prize of the former China Petrochemical Association Science and Technology Progress Award, can significantly improve the quality of paper and significantly reduce the pollution of papermaking wastewater, which is also greatly welcomed by the market. At present, the new product has gradually replaced traditional products and is widely used in the industry.

"Scientific and technological innovation in the field of green paper chemicals has made great contributions to promoting the green development of the paper industry, and will play a greater role in the future." Yao Xianping said, although the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" is a period of rapid and stable development of my country's paper chemicals industry It is a major opportunity period for development, but it must also be seen that the industry still faces many practical problems that need to be solved urgently. For the energy saving and emission reduction work of the paper chemical industry during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, he put forward the following suggestions:

The first is to focus on developing in the direction of scale, specialization and serialization. Paper chemical enterprises must develop from the current pattern of small scale and single variety to large scale, specialization and serialization, speed up to become bigger and stronger, increase technological transformation, and form an industrial scale.

The second is to strive to improve the ability of independent innovation, continuously increase investment in science and technology, and speed up the development of papermaking chemicals that are urgently needed by the papermaking industry. Combined with the national conditions of papermaking in my country, it is especially necessary to accelerate the development of special chemicals for non-wood fiber, special chemicals for recycled paper, special chemicals for environmental protection, special chemicals for special paper and other urgently needed paper chemicals in the market.

The third is to pay attention to the research and development of paper chemical application technology and special equipment. Applied technology is a high-efficiency technology in exchange for low cost, and paper chemical manufacturers in developed countries attach great importance to applied research. In this regard, compared with developed countries, there is still a big gap between my country and developed countries, which should be paid great attention to.

Fourth, strengthen domestic and foreign cooperation and exchanges. On the one hand, we must attach great importance to exchanges and cooperation with foreign counterparts, and promote the depth and breadth of cooperation to maximize the development level of my country's paper chemicals industry; All-round cooperation between production, education and research in the two industries.