Certain types of microbiological problems in paper mills seem to be acute all the time. Looking back to last months, this may be "Top Three" among them:
* Microbiological spoilage of raw materials. This is an everlasting hazard for mineral and starch slurries, and the reasons are very easy to understand: both raw materials mentioned may contain high densities of bacteria (mainly aerobic sporeformers and actinobacteria), slurries containing starch are very nutritive growth media for different microbial species and the very challenging biocidic treatments of slurries (especially mineral ones), when inaccurate, can lead to the total spoilage of them.
* Growth of biofilm and production of slime. This problem seems to be connected to poor washing and boil-out programs which leave rests of biofilm inside the machine and give growth time for it because too long running periods. The chose of ineffective biocide and/or its insufficient dosing can also stimulate the activity of these trouble-makers.
* Microbial growth in the broke system. Especially big machines with large broke towers suffer of this problem. If the basic biocide program is insufficient and the retention times inside the towers are too long, aerobic population tend to increase the number of its cells to the level of 10 000 000 cfu/g or even higher. Consumption of oxygen by respirating bacteria leads to anaerobic conditions, redox potential will be dropped and the growth conditions for both fermentative and anaerobic bacteria turns to be excellent. Drop of pH, slime and spore formation, smells and odours - even the production of H2S and H2 - will be found in such situations.
There are some measures to prevent these hazards. Growth period of microbial population shall be kept as short as possible, the control of waterborne and bioflim bacteria shall be as rapid and frequent as possible and the bioside programs, intended in killing of raw material, process water and biofilm bacteria shall be evaluated more frequently.
A realistic and accurate way to control both process water and biofilm growth, as well as to evaluate biocide programs, is now available. The Finnish company SAMPLION Ltd is manufacturing and selling "Portable Microbiological Enrichment Unit", a "mini-fermentor" for 10 simultaneous tests in controlled conditions, to detect the failures of biocide programs in only hours (watesr) or days (biofilms). Some results of PMEU's paper industry applications will be published in next Spring - coming back to refer them later.
Some wrong ideas about the overdosing of biocides will also rise up frequently among publicity. Basically it is not a question of only the cubic meters of biocides consumed, however, The chose of most effective biocides for different areas of processes towards different problems, the dosing of these compounds, their type of action and some other factors play a major role when building an effective biocide program for paper machine. Overdosing of biocides is a problem only in cases, when the program does not work, and leads to the loss of money and the rise of biocide concentration in paper machine effluents.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
What will the next Spring bring to Finnish paper industry?
After a most busy period in May 2009, IM would like to write something (partly because his insomnia - a common symptom during light & bright Nordic summer nights) to the readers of his blog.
Several seminars for the rise of Nordic forest industry have arranged and will be arranged before Finland "will be closed" for summer holidays. - This is, by the way, a common feature of Finnish lifestyle, and easy to understand: you shall first work in dark and rain for months, the temperature drops well below 0 oC, and you should try to be active all through the winter. But when the summer comes, everybody will wake up again and "see a light at the end of a tunnel" (which was the title in the annual meeting of Finnish Paper Engineer's Association). And then, during the summer months, citizen tend to move to their summer cottages and villas to just rest and collect forces to tolerate the next winter..
Back to the topic:
There was a certain drop in the number of visitors, speakers and companies with exhibition desks in the annual Congress "BioChem" in Helsinki, 27.-29.5.2009. It was a pity to see that a lot of paper industry-associated companies did not arrive to show their products. The depression of global economy was very easy to sense. After all: there were still active participants left, eg. the novel company SAMPLION Ltd. which is now distributing PMEU system for all areas of microbiological control.
Positive attitudes were obvious also in the annual "Summer Summit" by AEL, the major education company for adult professionals, paper industry ones included.
What will happen next? A conference, discussing of future forecasts of forest industry, will be held in the middle of June in Jyväskylä, Finland. After that the annual PIRA congress will be held in Barcelona, Spain, in October.
If only the paper industry research will be activated again..It is, of course, a question of money, but, after all: to leave brilliant Finnish researchers without work is really a vast of excellence. It has be proven several times that the rebuilding of research groups after a depression is a much harder work than to start those activities from zero. It would therefore be better to keep such organisations in work over the bad periods.
IM is looking forward to the next Autumn! A most interesting thing to see what are the forecasts of Nordic P&P industry when the summer is over!
Several seminars for the rise of Nordic forest industry have arranged and will be arranged before Finland "will be closed" for summer holidays. - This is, by the way, a common feature of Finnish lifestyle, and easy to understand: you shall first work in dark and rain for months, the temperature drops well below 0 oC, and you should try to be active all through the winter. But when the summer comes, everybody will wake up again and "see a light at the end of a tunnel" (which was the title in the annual meeting of Finnish Paper Engineer's Association). And then, during the summer months, citizen tend to move to their summer cottages and villas to just rest and collect forces to tolerate the next winter..
Back to the topic:
There was a certain drop in the number of visitors, speakers and companies with exhibition desks in the annual Congress "BioChem" in Helsinki, 27.-29.5.2009. It was a pity to see that a lot of paper industry-associated companies did not arrive to show their products. The depression of global economy was very easy to sense. After all: there were still active participants left, eg. the novel company SAMPLION Ltd. which is now distributing PMEU system for all areas of microbiological control.
Positive attitudes were obvious also in the annual "Summer Summit" by AEL, the major education company for adult professionals, paper industry ones included.
What will happen next? A conference, discussing of future forecasts of forest industry, will be held in the middle of June in Jyväskylä, Finland. After that the annual PIRA congress will be held in Barcelona, Spain, in October.
If only the paper industry research will be activated again..It is, of course, a question of money, but, after all: to leave brilliant Finnish researchers without work is really a vast of excellence. It has be proven several times that the rebuilding of research groups after a depression is a much harder work than to start those activities from zero. It would therefore be better to keep such organisations in work over the bad periods.
IM is looking forward to the next Autumn! A most interesting thing to see what are the forecasts of Nordic P&P industry when the summer is over!
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
What's new?
Last weeks have been very active in IM's life.
Annual meeting of Finnish Paper Engineers's Union (Paperi-insinööriliitto) has given some new opinions about paper industry in our country. Optimistic views were mainly honest ones, and the title of the meeting indicated better views into the future: "There is light in the other end of the tunnel"!
Training of paper industry employees seems also to be continued. AEL (biggest professional training coalition in Finland) kept a course of paper industry sampling a couple of weeks ago in Lappeenranta, and AEL and its smaller "competitor", Finn-Fiber Oy (especially focused on paper industry issues) are planning new courses to be kept already in next summer and autumn. It is very interesting to join the planning groups of these companies and be with when finding current topics and speakers for seminars and lectures.
Main issue, of course, are the measures to spare money, and in this context, it means better drive of the machines. Better sampling and faster analyses of the processes are most important ways to prevent all kinds of process problems and product faults, and the role of PMEU (Portable Microbiological Enrichment Unit) seems to rise even more: a new coalition of companies called Samplion Oy has started the mearketing of this microbiological analyse tool, and it will be presented on Chembio Fair at the end of this month in Helsinki, Finland. We'll meet by the stand of Samplion Oy!
Negative issues should also be mentioned. One of them is the market situation of Russian short fiber: Carelian companies shall fulfill their task to collect certain amount of birch logs, no matter they cannot sell them to Finland because high taxes, set by Russian government. IM wishes good luck for the negotiations about this problem!
We are living interesting times - let's see what happens in the area of paper industry in next months!
Annual meeting of Finnish Paper Engineers's Union (Paperi-insinööriliitto) has given some new opinions about paper industry in our country. Optimistic views were mainly honest ones, and the title of the meeting indicated better views into the future: "There is light in the other end of the tunnel"!
Training of paper industry employees seems also to be continued. AEL (biggest professional training coalition in Finland) kept a course of paper industry sampling a couple of weeks ago in Lappeenranta, and AEL and its smaller "competitor", Finn-Fiber Oy (especially focused on paper industry issues) are planning new courses to be kept already in next summer and autumn. It is very interesting to join the planning groups of these companies and be with when finding current topics and speakers for seminars and lectures.
Main issue, of course, are the measures to spare money, and in this context, it means better drive of the machines. Better sampling and faster analyses of the processes are most important ways to prevent all kinds of process problems and product faults, and the role of PMEU (Portable Microbiological Enrichment Unit) seems to rise even more: a new coalition of companies called Samplion Oy has started the mearketing of this microbiological analyse tool, and it will be presented on Chembio Fair at the end of this month in Helsinki, Finland. We'll meet by the stand of Samplion Oy!
Negative issues should also be mentioned. One of them is the market situation of Russian short fiber: Carelian companies shall fulfill their task to collect certain amount of birch logs, no matter they cannot sell them to Finland because high taxes, set by Russian government. IM wishes good luck for the negotiations about this problem!
We are living interesting times - let's see what happens in the area of paper industry in next months!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Most important issues in paper industry microbiology?
Referring the responses of the readers of IM blog, it seems that the most important issues of this QC area are:
* Klebsiella pneumoniae (and other pathogens)
* Activated sludge
* Economical effects of mb control for the mill
For some reason, no such interest has been focused to
* biofilms
* product hygiene
* raw material storage
* HACCP in P&P industry
* novel mb methods
IM is very pleased for the active visits on his blog page but, after all, will also be very pleased to hear questions about the issues mentioned above.
Looking forward to hear your questions,
IM
* Klebsiella pneumoniae (and other pathogens)
* Activated sludge
* Economical effects of mb control for the mill
For some reason, no such interest has been focused to
* biofilms
* product hygiene
* raw material storage
* HACCP in P&P industry
* novel mb methods
IM is very pleased for the active visits on his blog page but, after all, will also be very pleased to hear questions about the issues mentioned above.
Looking forward to hear your questions,
IM
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Annual Award "Forest Industry Trainer 2008" by AEL
Microbiology has regarded as a considerable area of paper industry support by Finnish training institute AEL a couple of days ago.
This award was definitely an issue of personal satisfaction for IM. The fact that the role of microbiological control of paper mills has been taken into consideration is the most important thing, however. Courses and lectures of P&P microbiology will focus the attention of personnel in this industry to the significant spares which are resulted by better maintenance of raw materials, run of the machines and quality of the products.
This award was given in the annual meeting of PI, Finnish Society of Paper Engineers. The forecasts of speakers in this meeting were optimistic ones and opinions seem to be pretty positive ones. Funding of several paper technology students also indicates these feelings. The final conclusion of this meeting can therefore be: P&P industry is not a "sunset branch" of global economy, no matter severe economical problems have arisen during last years. Paper and board is still needed worldwide, as well as new fiber-based bioproducts. Feelings after the meeting were therefore very good, indeed.
This award was definitely an issue of personal satisfaction for IM. The fact that the role of microbiological control of paper mills has been taken into consideration is the most important thing, however. Courses and lectures of P&P microbiology will focus the attention of personnel in this industry to the significant spares which are resulted by better maintenance of raw materials, run of the machines and quality of the products.
This award was given in the annual meeting of PI, Finnish Society of Paper Engineers. The forecasts of speakers in this meeting were optimistic ones and opinions seem to be pretty positive ones. Funding of several paper technology students also indicates these feelings. The final conclusion of this meeting can therefore be: P&P industry is not a "sunset branch" of global economy, no matter severe economical problems have arisen during last years. Paper and board is still needed worldwide, as well as new fiber-based bioproducts. Feelings after the meeting were therefore very good, indeed.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Five most important issues in current P&P industry?
IM is wondering, what will the future of P&P be like.
Referring his ideas, five major topics are needed:
1 PRODUCT: you shall have some product which is really needed among customers. An example: LPB (everybody will buy milk and juice in carton packages every day during her/his lifetime).
2 PERSONNEL: persons on all levels of the company, interested to sell good products.
3 MARKET: the only question: are the customers well aware about your product? If not, why?
4 RESEARCH: R&D in P&P is not a region of "sunset". A lot can be done to improve the quality of products, production etc. It would be possible to find even new products: why not to sell motor oil in LPB containers?
5 DEVELOPMENT. This is the most difficult issue. R&D is interested to develop new ideas but the economists do not see any forecasts for the innovations - why?
- O.K. IM is just a microbiologist and do not understand the global economy. He is still asking, however: where is the development and optimistic forecasts in P&P industry?
IM will also ask: are the Asian people more enthusiastic to develop P&P industry? Not only economically but also in their minds?
Referring his ideas, five major topics are needed:
1 PRODUCT: you shall have some product which is really needed among customers. An example: LPB (everybody will buy milk and juice in carton packages every day during her/his lifetime).
2 PERSONNEL: persons on all levels of the company, interested to sell good products.
3 MARKET: the only question: are the customers well aware about your product? If not, why?
4 RESEARCH: R&D in P&P is not a region of "sunset". A lot can be done to improve the quality of products, production etc. It would be possible to find even new products: why not to sell motor oil in LPB containers?
5 DEVELOPMENT. This is the most difficult issue. R&D is interested to develop new ideas but the economists do not see any forecasts for the innovations - why?
- O.K. IM is just a microbiologist and do not understand the global economy. He is still asking, however: where is the development and optimistic forecasts in P&P industry?
IM will also ask: are the Asian people more enthusiastic to develop P&P industry? Not only economically but also in their minds?
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Control of activated sludge process in paper industry.
Effluents of pulp and paper mills are relatively simple to treat by activated sludge process - in theory. Some severe problems have arisen in practice, however.
Temperatures of incoming waste waters have risen during last years. The most obvious reason for this phenomenon is the increased recirculation of process waters inside the mills. Poor sedimentation of flogs, caused by the heavy growth of filamentous bacteria, has also become to be more and more hard problem for purification plants. There may be some kind of correlation between temperature and bulking of sludge?
Another problem, potentially very hazardous, is the growth and recirculation of Legionella pneumophila inside activated sludge process. The role of Protozoa has now been established: they act as carrirs of bacteria backwards in returned sludge.
Dosing of nutrients into biological treatment steps isn't any hard task anymore because the need of phosphorus and nitrogen has been studied very deeply, and simpe AT LINE testing for the optimization of them is easy to perform in the mill labs.
Two problems, mentioned before, still exist and need R&D activities to be solved: bulking of the sludge (by filamentous organisms) and L.pneumophila.
Temperatures of incoming waste waters have risen during last years. The most obvious reason for this phenomenon is the increased recirculation of process waters inside the mills. Poor sedimentation of flogs, caused by the heavy growth of filamentous bacteria, has also become to be more and more hard problem for purification plants. There may be some kind of correlation between temperature and bulking of sludge?
Another problem, potentially very hazardous, is the growth and recirculation of Legionella pneumophila inside activated sludge process. The role of Protozoa has now been established: they act as carrirs of bacteria backwards in returned sludge.
Dosing of nutrients into biological treatment steps isn't any hard task anymore because the need of phosphorus and nitrogen has been studied very deeply, and simpe AT LINE testing for the optimization of them is easy to perform in the mill labs.
Two problems, mentioned before, still exist and need R&D activities to be solved: bulking of the sludge (by filamentous organisms) and L.pneumophila.
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