Paper is a versatile material with many uses. Whilst the most common is for writing and printing upon, it is also widely used as a packaging material, in many cleaning products, in a number of industrial and construction processes, and even as a food ingredient – particularly in Asian cultures.
Paper, and the pulp papermaking process, was said to be developed in China during the early 2nd century AD, possibly as early as the year 105 A.D.,[1] by the Han court eunuch Cai Lun, although the earliest archaeological fragments of paper derive from the 2nd century BC in China.[2]
The modern pulp and paper industry is global, with China leading production and the United States behind it.To make pulp from wood, a chemical pulping process separates lignin from cellulose fibers. This is accomplished by dissolving lignin in a cooking liquor, so that it may be washed from the cellulose fibers. This preserves the length of the cellulose fibers. Paper made from chemical pulps are also known as wood-free papers–not to be confused with tree-free paper. This is because they do not contain lignin, which deteriorates over time. The pulp can also be bleached to produce white paper, but this consumes 5% of the fibers. Chemical pulping processes are not used to make paper made from cotton, which is already 90% cellulose.
The microscopic structure of paper: Micrograph of paper autofluorescing under ultraviolet illumination. The individual fibres in this sample are around 10 µm in diameter.
There are three main chemical pulping processes. The sulfite process dates back to the 1840s, and it was the dominant process before the second world war. The kraft process, invented in the 1870s and first used in the 1890s, is now the most commonly practiced strategy. One advantage is a chemical reaction with lignin