• Encouraging Leadership in Ottawa
• Partners in Prosperity
• Laboratory Results Predict Pulp Performance in the Mill
• A Breathtaking View of Peru
• Fiber Length Explained, Part 1 - An Introduction
• A Dolphin Compared with a Blue Whale
• Fiber Properties of Pinus Species
• Fracture Toughness and Important Considerations for the Pulp & Paper Industry
• World Class Effort at Work and at Play
• Commitment to freedom
• Computer Experts in the Making
• Pulp You Wear
• Quiz: Test Your Knowledge of Wood Chemistry - Answers

My wife Norma and I - founders of Econotech - spoke at a dinner in Centre Block Parliament Building in Ottawa this spring to over 100 government leaders and Members of Parliament. We discussed the importance of a proper foundation for the lives of those in leadership.

Leaders impact the lives of others by their decisions and examples. Wise decisions and a positive example are based on sound ethics, forgiveness, integrity and other positive character traits.

People in government are leaders, but so are parents, teachers, businessmen as well as each one of us. My foundation for making wise decisions and setting a positive example is based on my relationship with God through Jesus.

My life was dramatically changed 21 years ago because of the faith of my 20-year-old son Alan. This change has led to a solid foundation for ethics and service for Econotech.

Econotech Services Ltd. is pleased to announce that it is entering into a formal working relationship with Columbia Analytical Services, Inc. (CAS), headquartered in Kelso, Washington. Columbia Analytical is a certified, full-service chemical and biological analytical laboratory network. Their network is comprised of ten laboratories located in Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, New York and Washington. Columbia Analytical's expertise encompasses air, water, biological, solid and hazardous waste analysis. CAS provides services to meet virtually any state or federal regulatory requirement in the United States of America.

Our joint venture with Columbia Analytical Services will allow us the opportunity to broaden our laboratory testing abilities through the cooperation of the CAS offices. Econotech will be establishing shipping points for existing US clients in both Jacksonville, Florida and Kelso, Washington. These shipping points will allow our clients the advantage of expediting sample shipment to our Vancouver laboratory.

Through our affiliation with Columbia Analytical we can provide EPA studies for the pulp and paper industry, in compliance with US government regulations. With the implementation of cluster rules for the pulp and paper industry in the US, there will be a need for an increase in the frequency of monitoring and for the expansion in the scope of analysis for a variety of organic compounds.

The proposed cluster rule regulations increase the frequency of monitoring for adsorbable organic halogens (AOX) and expand the scope of analysis to include chloroform and chlorinated phenolic compounds to be analyzed by isotope dilution methods. The proposed may impact processes if the results of the current promulgated AOX and chlorinated phenolic sample preparation methods are different from the new ones. It may be necessary to compare historical data to that of the newest methods, especially if previous results are close to compliance limits.

Columbia Analytical has extensive experience with all of these procedures. Columbia Analytical was one of five laboratories that contributed to the method validation studies on Method 1653, sponsored by the EPA and NCASI. CAS data was judged among the best for the Method 1653 validation study.

Econotech will soon be able to assist our clients in determining cluster rule needs, including sampling, analysis, data validation and database management.

As a world-wide leader in pulp and paper technology, our new affiliation will further diversify and expand our testing abilities as an international laboratory.

Jim Oei from Western Pulp in Squamish, British Columbia, presented a paper at the Parksville Pacific Branch CPPA Conference this spring. The goal of the project was to develop a bleach sequence which would produce an effluent AOX less than 0.63 kg/ADT, reduce ClO₂ consumption and bleaching costs and raise the brightness of the ECF pulp.

Laboratory work at Econotech exploring DEpoD and DEoEpoD sequences showed that the DEoEpoD sequence was more effective in the utilization of chlorine dioxide and produced less AOX in the effluent. This was especially true when carry-over was simulated.

Our mill started with the DEpoD option, but failed to reach the project objectives. When the DEoEpoD sequence was initiated, the goals of the project were realized just as predicted by the laboratory work. The AOX decrased from 0.90 to 0.55 kg/ADT, ClO₂ consumption was 10 kg/ADT lower and the ECF brightness ceiling was increased. This helped to increase the production rate of the ECF pulp. We really appreciate Econotech's help in this study.

I love to travel. I have always had an interest in the Aztecs and the Incas, and Peru is definitely the place to go to learn about the Incas.

Part of our three week trip included walking the "Inca Trail". Although the Incas could run the trail in six hours, we needed five days, which allowed us to stop and see a lot of the ruins along the way. While Machu Picchu is everyone's main destination, we explored the ruins in privacy as we were the only group to stop along the way.

My favorite ruin was Sayacmarca - it seemed to loom up out of the mist. The ruin is on a part of the trail that goes through the jungle. To reach its peak we climbed a very steep staircase built into the rock.

As you can see, Machu Picchu is quite developed. We walked down into the city from the sun gate and took a bus to the town of Aguas Calientes. The bus ride down was quite exciting as it is a series of switchbacks. One of my highlights was watching a young boy, who called himself "catch you boy", run straight down the mountain to meet us at each switchback. This was how he earned money for his family. It is a great trip for all ages - the age range in our group was from 17 to 72. If you enjoy walking and have a good pair of lungs, Peru is fabulous. We owe much of the success of our trip to our great guide, Humberto.

Fiber length can help to diagnose strength problems, monitor fines content and even measure hardwood/softwood content. In the past, characterization of pulp fiber lengths was done by a rather laborious manual method. This involved mounting the fibers onto microscope slides, projecting the image of the fiber onto a screen and directly tracing the magnified image of the fiber. A mechanical or digital tally counter with a tracing wheel was used, but the procedure was still rather arduous and only 150-200 fibers were counted.

Then came the advent of automated fiber length analyzers. First the Kajaani FS100 and FS200 and, more recently, the Fiber Quality Analyzer (FQA) have entered the marketplace. These instruments use various optical and digital techniques to measure 5000 to 20,000 fibers per sample. Once the data are collected, the numbers are crunched by a computer and interpretations of results are made. Fiber coarseness is another important pulp parameter that these instruments measure well. The FQA can also characterize the kink and curl of the pulp.

The old manual method can still be useful, however. The technician could choose not to include certain constituents, such as vessel elements, when determining the fiber length. The automated methods do not allow for this discrimination; they measure everything. Although the manual method has its place, the automated instruments are now the method of choice due mainly to the ease of use, the measurement of a large number of fibers and quick turnaround time.

The typical batch digester in pulp mills today is about 6000 to 8000 cubic feet (170 to 225 m3). One digester holds about 24 to 32 tons of moisture-free wood chips. Continuous digesters are even bigger by about 10 to 20 times.

By comparison, our laboratory digesters are small, holding three to 10 kg of moisture-free wood chips. The volume ranges from 0.7 to two cubic feet. Mill batch digesters are about 6000 times bigger than ours! If you placed the lab digester beside a mill batch digester, it would look like a dolphin swimming beside a blue whale.

While our laboratory digesters are small, the cooking response is very similar to mill batch digesters. The same H-factor and liquor concentrations will give similar kappa numbers in the mill and laboratory digesters. Even continuous digesters are satisfactorily simulated in our laboratory system.

Since pine trees grow all over the world, it's interesting to look at what differences occur in fiber properties. The table below compares lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) and loblolly pine (Pinus taeda). Lodgepole pine is native to British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and Idaho and parts of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and California. It grows tall, slender and straight and can be identified by its pairs of needles 2-7 cm long. Other pine trees in the Pacific Northwest have needles in fives (white pine) and in threes (ponderosa pine). Loblolly pine occurs naturally in the southeast states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi and parts of Louisiana and Texas. The photomicrograph of a lodgepole pine fiber shows the large pinoid pitting that identifies a pine fiber.

The southern species is usually coarser and has a longer fiber length than the northwest species. The data from the two sources below give an idea of the natural variation in these fibers. Since these pulps have longer fibers than hardwood pulps, they are added as reinforcing fibers in papermaking. Coarseness is important because (if other factors are equal) a finer pulp will give a stronger, smoother and better folding paper.

Fracture toughness is the ability of a paper to resist further crack propagation. The main role of kraft softwood pulp produced in the Pacific Northwest is to provide paper with sufficient reinforcement strength to ensure that the paper has good runnability on paper machines and printing presses.

With paper machines running at up to 4000 ft/min, sheet breaks due to fiber stock with poor reinforcement strength can be very costly. In September 997, Boise Cascade's mill in Jackson, Alabama set a North American speed record for a nine to ten meter wide printing paper machine of 4033 feet per minute for a 24 hour period.

With all the changes facing our industry, such as new energy-efficient pulping processes and non-chlorine bleaching sequences, not to mention the increased competition, it is imperative that we as pulp and paper technical specialists learn all we can about specific properties of our product that might give us a competitive edge.

As a Senior Technologist in the pilot plant, Sumesh Putra has devoted 11 years at Econotech to perfecting laboratory simulations of modified continuous cooking, low energy batch operation and mechanical pulping runs. These simulations help mills develop new products and improve existing processes. This has required dedication, consistency and accuracy to obtain quality results and customer satisfaction. He applies the same commitment to life.

Sumesh started playing field hockey 26 years ago in Malaysia and currently spends much of his time officiating at local and international field hockey competitions. He has the highest classification of "World Cup/Olympic List" referee. In April, he was in South Africa refereeing a four nation tournament at the men's level between Canada, Pakistan, South Africa and Egypt. In May he was in Holland for the World Cup Tournament. Sumesh was a nominee for the 1997 Sport BC Official of the Year Award.

Sumesh's next trip will be in September for the Commonwealth Games in Malaysia.

Sumesh and his wife, Denise are busy raising their two children aged 5 and 3. The kids are into gymnastics and swimming, but they may give field hockey a try in the future.

Freedom is not free. Van Le and Marguerite Tran learned this fact through first-hand experience.

When the communists took over in Vietnam, Van lost his engineering job at a thermal power plant and was hired at a paint factory six months later. Marguerite still worked as a pharmacist in her own store. With rampant inflation and the low productivity that accompanies communism, food was scarce and expensive. Due to extreme rationing, Van and Marguerite were unable to feed their four young boys and themselves. Neighbors would often spy on one another if they acquired a small chicken. Van and Marguerite carefully planned their escape by downsizing and selling their possessions.

For two gold bars, they secured passage out of the country on a boat, which unfortunately did not exist. With money from friends and family, they bought a boat from a trustworthy fisherman, along with food and water for a three day voyage.

They managed to make it to international waters, but they were not alone. Pirates from Thailand boarded their vessel and stole some gold and their auxiliary motors, but left them some food and fuel.

They encountered propeller and engine problems, but finally a school of dolphins led them to the Malaysian shore. The Malaysian authorities wanted to two them back to sea. If not for the desperate pleading of tourists at the resort, they would not have been allowed to seek refuge in a small area of the beach. A few of the natives smuggled food and water to them during their week-long stay. They were moved with 42,000 other refugees to Bidong Island. Since Van and Marguerite knew French and English and both had professional degrees, they were granted entry into Canada.

Van began working in the Dissolving Pulp Evaluation Department at Econotech in 1997 after spending 15 years in UBC's Chemical Engineering Department. Marguerite completed the Chemical Technicians course at BCIT and has been a Bleaching Technologist since 1984.

Marguerite and Van gave up all their worldly possessions and almost their lives to reach freedom. This same sense of commitment to their respective work is appreciated by Econotech's customers.

The 20^th century has been the era of technological advancement. Computerization and computer literacy are a must for those who want to succeed in a challenging world.

At Econotech, we embrace such technological advancement. In January 1998, Econotech started offering grants to employees who purchase a computer. Ten of us have taken advantage of this generous offer to date.

In the main analytical laboratory, Eleanor, Sonia, Brenda and I all bought computers and are excited to learn how to use them. Eleanor has gone one step further by spending time at home developing programs in Microsoft Excel that will be of great use to our department.

A few drops of frustration while learning can reap barrels of rewards in knowledge.

Wood pulp has been used in manmade fibers since before World War I. Despite its cotton-like composition, early viscose rayon suffered from low wet strength, falling apart when washed. With recent advances in spinning and finishing, the fiber has become popular in women's clothing. Most items still need to be dry cleaned, but its soft hand and beautiful drape make it pleasant to wear.

New developments in the viscose industry have resulted in a solvent spun rayon. Whereas regenerating a cellulose derivative during spinning produces viscose rayon, the new process dissolves wood pulp directly in a solvent. The result is a stronger fiber with the same pleasant hand as viscose rayon. This fiber, which is currently manufactured by Courtaulds and is called Tencel, wears like polyester but feels like brushed cotton.

The shiny smooth surface of cellulose acetate fabrics makes them suitable for garment linings. Jackets, neckties and women's dresses and slacks are lined with acetate fabrics. Not only does the lining make it easier to get the garment on or off, it protects the garment from abrasion that would shorten its useful life.

1. Cellulose, hemi-cellulose, lignin and extractives - What are the major chemical components of wood?
2. Glucose - What is the sugar molecule common to maltose, lactose, sucrose, honey, starch and cellulose?
3. Hardwoods - Which contains more hemi-cellulose, hardwood or softwood?
4. Hemi-cellulose - What is a class of polymers containing five different sugars: glucose, mannose, galactose, xylose or arabinose?
5. Hardwoods - Which contains more xylan, hardwood or softwood?
6. Lignin - Which amorphous substance, together with cellulose, forms the woody cell wall of a tree?
7. The neutral extractives (waxes and terpenes) are not saponifiable and thus are not removed with the tall oil - What group of extractives is not removed with the tall oil in kraft pulping?