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Hydrogen peroxide and supercritical carbon dioxide: a new bleaching stage for Eucalyptus kraft-O2 pulps

Abstract Kraft pulp is currently bleached largely by the elemental chlorine free (ECF) technology with oxygen, chlorine dioxide, and hydrogen as active agents. This technology brought about significant environmental improvements in relation to standard processes based on chlorine gas and hypochlorite, but there is still need for further improvements. This study presents a novel environmentally friendly bleaching stage – the so-called ‘hydrogen peroxide in supercritical carbon dioxide’, P(SC-CO2) – that can be adapted to current ECF bleaching processes, with preference in cases where hydrogen peroxide is already used. In this study, the P(SC-CO2) stage was evaluated as a replacement to the last peroxide stage of the D(EP)DP bleaching sequence and to the first peroxide stage of the D(EP)DP sequence, for an oxygen delignified eucalypt kraft-O2 pulp. The P(SC-CO2) stage was run with 0.5% hydrogen peroxide, at 15% consistency, 70°C, and 73 bar. The reaction time was 30 min. The performances of regular P stages and the new P(SC-CO2) stage were compared. Promising results were observed with the DEP(SC-CO2)DP sequence; the P(SC-CO2) decreased kappa number from 2.7 to 2.1, and the hexenuronic acid groups from 17.0 to 12.4 mmol kg-1. The P(SC-CO2) stage showed poor performance when applied in the D(EP)DP(SC-CO2) sequence. It is concluded that the process presents potential but requires further optimization to improve selectivity and efficiency.