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9 Recovery

chemicals, the organic material dissolved from wood. The spent liquor proceeds

to the evaporation plant, where it is concentrated to a level suitable for combustion.

The thick liquor goes on to the chemical recovery system, which comprises a

recovery boiler and a number of installations for the preparation of fresh cooking

liquor. The recovery boiler separates the inorganic cooking chemicals from the

totality of spent liquor solids, and in parallel generates steam by combustion of

the organic matter in the spent liquor. The inorganics proceed to the cooking

liquor preparation system, which in the kraft industry consists of the causticizing

and lime reburning areas. Fresh kraft cooking liquor is referred to as white liquor,

and spent kraft liquor is called black liquor.

COOKING

CHEMICAL

CYCLE

EVAPORATION

CHEMICAL

RECOVERY

COOKING /

WASHING

Fresh

cooking liquor

(white liquor)

Spent

cooking liquor

(black liquor)

Thick liquor

Fig. 9.3 The cooking chemical cycle.

Besides serving the purposes of chemical recovery and energy generation, the

combustion units in the chemical recovery areas are used for the disposal of odorous

Vent gases from all areas of the pulp mill. From an environmental perspective,

these combustion units represent the major sources of a pulp mill’s emissions to

air.

The following sections provide a brief overview over the main processes

employed in evaporation and chemical recovery, with particular focus on the kraft

process. Those readers requiring further detail are referred to the relevant (information

on recovery in the alkaline pulping processes e.g. Refs. [12–14]), and to

Ref. [15] for sulfite recovery.

9.2.2

Black Liquor Evaporation

9.2.2.1 Introduction

Spent cooking liquor coming from the digester or wash plant typically contains

13–18% dry solids, the remainder being water. In order to recover the energy

bound in the black liquor organics, it is necessary to remove most of the water

from the weak liquor. This is done by evaporation, and this in turn raises the dry

solids concentration in the black liquor for the purpose of firing the thick liquor

974

9.2 Chemical Recovery Processes

in a recovery boiler. Depending on the process used, a final solids concentration

in thick liquor from kraft pulping up to 85% is achievable. Most commonly, kraft

thick liquor concentrations are in the range of 65% to 80% dry solids. Thick

liquors from sulfite pulping reach 50–65% dry solids.

Either steam or electrical power can be used to provide the energy to evaporate

water from the black liquor. As there are usually sufficient quantities of low-pressure

steam available in a pulp mill, the most economic solution in almost all cases

is multi-effect evaporation with steam as the energy source. The use of mechanical

vapor recompression (an electrical power-consuming process) is economically

restricted to the evaporation of liquors with a low boiling point rise. Vapor recompression

is therefore viable mainly for the pre-thickening of kraft black liquors at low

dry solids concentrations, or for the evaporation of liquors from sulfite pulping.

9.2.2.2 Evaporators

Today’s evaporators are mainly of the falling film type, with plates or tubes as

heating elements. For applications involving high-viscosity liquor, or liquor with a

strong tendency to scaling, forced circulation evaporators are also employed. Evaporators

are usually constructed from stainless steel.

A schematic diagram of a falling film evaporator equipped with plate (lamella)

heating elements is shown in Fig. 9.4. Thin liquor is fed to the suction side of the

circulation liquor pump, which lifts the black liquor up to the liquor distribution.

The liquor distribution ensures uniform wetting of the heating element surfaces.

As the liquor flows downwards on the hot surface by gravity, the water is evaporated

and the concentration of the liquor increases. The concentrated liquor is collected