The edge trim provides significant white fiber recovery and savings. Benefits include improved formation and final paper appearance, as well as clean wire edges and significantly fewer web breaks.
Since January 2017, paper manufacturer GreenPaper, headquartered in the city of San Nicolás de los Garza, Nuevo León, Mexico, has been operating with Voith’s EdgeExpert edge trim concept on the wire section of its PM 3’s top ply. The paper manufacturer is Latin America’s first reference for this solution. The EdgeExpert unit has provided significant raw material savings for GreenPaper, and its results have exceeded the customer’s expectations.
“Directly recovering the white fibers from the edges of the top ply before it is mixed with other lower quality stock provides a significant recovery of 70 to 80 tons of white fiber every month”, says Federico Chávez Gómez, Engineering and Mechanical Project Manager for GreenPaper. “EdgeExpert keeps the edges of the top-ply wire clean, preventing web breaks caused by fiber accumulations on the wire, as well as improving formation and the final appearance of the paper edges after the coating process”, he concludes.
EdgeExpert trims the edge of the stock jet before it lands on the wire, continuously returning it to the virgin fiber stock circuit. The width of the edge can be adjusted to meet each paper grade’s specific needs. By collecting the stock edges directly through the whitewater pan, the system prevents these fibers from mixing with the stock from other plies. This allows for significant fiber recovery and reuse, translating into significant operational savings. EdgeExpert’s nozzle design also ensures low water consumption.
Installing the EdgeExpert edge trim concept is easy and cost-effective – no matter the original machine manufacturer. Assembling the unit only takes a few hours and can be carried out during a regular shutdown. With its bold design, EdgeExpert features dispersion tubes for continuous cleaning and acts as a format limiter for the initial drainage zone, while also avoiding waves in the fiber suspension and, consequently, variations in CD weight profile.
Voith’s know-how and experience as a full-line supplier to the paper industry was instrumental in understanding the customer’s needs and determining what was necessary to carry out this project. “The customer’s satisfaction with the achieved results confirms that EdgeExpert is an excellent choice for manufacturers seeking to save on raw materials and improve their paper production performance. Voithhas much to contribute to the optimized performance of sustainable and costeffective projects”, says Antonio Lemos, President of Voith Paper Products & Services South America.