The influence of the refining process on the morphological changes of a chemical softwood pulp was investigated. The Voith LR40 industrial-like laboratory low consistency refiner was used, where the pulp was refined with five refining segments with differences in bar widths, groove widths, and cutting angles. The refined pulp was characterized with a fibre analyser with a spatial resolution of approximately 4 μm/pixel and a wide size range. The fines fraction of the refined pulp was also characterized with an imaging flow cytometer with a spatial resolution of 0.33 μm/pixel and a narrower size range. The fibre analyser measurements showed that the mean length, width, and aspect ratio of the fines decreased monotonically with accumulated refining energy. The imaging flow cytometer with its higher spatial resolution showed little change in fines morphology with accumulated refining energy. The morphology of the fines was more dependent on the applied specific refining energy than the design of the refining segment. However, a segment with much finer grooves and bars, initially designed for hardwood, gave significantly less fibre shortening, fines generation, external fibrillation, kink, and fines that were more fibrillar, compared to the other segments.Grant: The authors of this work would like to thank Prof. Lars Mattsson, Thomas Grahn, and Eva Ålander for fruitful discussions. The discussions with Lorentzen & Wettre were of great assistance. The financial support of the Swedish Energy Agency and the Önnesjöstiftelsen to the PhD project, and of the Fibre and Stock Design research programme to this evaluation study is gratefully acknowledged.

Superhydrophobic surfaces have been fabricated in a continuous spray process, where an alkyl ketene dimer (AKD) wax is dissolved in supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO₂) and sprayed onto the substrate. The mass of extracted AKD from scCO₂ has been investigated as well as the pressure, temperature, and flow of CO₂ at the steady-state spray conditions. Several different substrates such as glass, aluminum, paper, poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) have been successfully coated, and the superhydrophobic properties have been evaluated by measurement of water contact angle, water drop friction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and surface topography. The most efficient spray process, considering surface properties and mass of extracted AKD, is obtained at the lowest temperature investigated, 67 °C, and the highest pressure evaluated in this study, 25 MPa. We also show that the influence of preexpansion conditions (p, T) on the surface temperature at the selected spray distance (3 cm) is negligible by measurement with an infrared camera during spraying.

Many properties of fines and fillers are dependent on their size and shape. This review is on the literature on size and shape characterization of fines and fillers. It takes into account measurement techniques of particle width, length, equivalent diameter, area, and shape/morphology. The advantages and limitations of different methods are discussed. Measurement of other particles properties, e.g., optical, chemical or rheological, were not included in the review. Size and shape characterization methods can be roughly divided into gravimetric and non-gravimetric methods. Gravimetric measurements methods account for all particles in the sample, but give only indicative size and shape information. Non-gravimetric methods usually give more direct size and shape information, but only account for particles larger than the resolution of the instrument. Additionally, measuring both larger and smaller particles simultaneously is rarely possible. An implication is that current analysers fail to measure a larger share of the sample, for example fibrils, which have a high impact on product properties. Of the reviewed measurement techniques, flow microscopy had the highest potential. Based on instruments found in other application areas, possible developments for flow microscopes include multiwavelength illumination and sensors, fluorescent staining, and hydrodynamic focusing.