Reinforcing Paper Strength by Dual Treatment of a Cationic Water-soluble Polymer and Cellulose Nanofibril

Cellulose nanofibril (CNF) was used as the anionic component of two dual strengthening systems wherein polyamidopolyamine epichlorohydrin resin (PAE) or cationic starch (CS) was used as the cationic component. Their strengthening effects were investigated for low-basis-weight (30 g/m²) paper composed of a mixture of fully bleached softwood and hardwood pulp in a 4:1 mass ratio. Using the PAE/CNF or CS/CNF dual system, it was generally easier to achieve higher wet and dry tensile strengths of paper compared to the paper using the single PAE or CS system. For example, the paper using the PAE (0.4%)/CNF (0.3%) dual system exhibited 89% higher wet tensile strength than the paper using the single PAE (0.4%) system, and the paper using CS (1.3%)/CNF (0.3%) dual treatment showed 21% higher dry strength than that using the single CS (1.3%) system. However, the PAE/CNF system only showed small improvement in the dry strength of paper (11% higher than that of paper using the single PAE system), so did the CS/NFC system on wet strength improvement (only 17% higher than that of paper using the single CS system).