Hardwood pulping
1927
process for pulping hardwoods for newsprint
For 120 years Australian newspapers were printed on imported paper or paper milled from imported pulp, because it was impossible to make paper using pulp from native hardwood tree species such as Eucalyptus which contains very short fibres.
As demand for paper products grew world-wide some researchers began to look seriously at producing paper from hardwoods. In 1918 West Australian scientists invented a way of pulping hardwoods by soaking the crushed wood in caustic soda. They made paper in a prototype plant in 1927, but the government had to offer tax incentives before newspaper publishers finally invested in a hardwood paper plant in Tasmania in 1941.
Since then Australia has become self sufficient in paper and the hardwood paper technology has been exported to countries where gum trees are farmed such as Portugal, Spain, Brazil, South Africa and Israel.
Who Did It?
Key Organisations
Key organisations
Australian Newsprint Mills Ltd : R&D, design, manufacture
Key People
C E Lane-Poole : forester
I H Boas : chemist
Further Reading
Research to reality
M Southern (ed)
AIRG, Melbourne, 1980, pp 26-32.
Links
Forestry Australia
Australian
Pulp and Paper Institute
CRC for Hardwood
Fibre and Paper Science
Pulp
and Paper Manufacturers of Australia
Current
Issues in Pulp and Paper Industry ATSE
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