New Approaches to Improve Deinking Flotation to Increase the Availability of High-Quality, Low-Cost Recycled Paper Fibers

This project addresses paper fiber recycling needs. The paper industry in the U.S. replaces more than half of its fiber needs with secondary resources recovered from post-consumer paper and paper products. This project will help the industry to further increase their economically competitive recycling rates to those achieved in Europe by developing more efficient separation technologies that can produce higher brightness fibers by removing impurities more efficiently from spent wood fibers. The project could enable the use of an additional 1.3 million metric tons per year of secondary fiber.