METHOD FOR CONDITIONING BALED WASTEPAPER IN RECYCLING OPERATIONS

摘要

The invention provides an improvement in the quality and quantity of cellulosic fibers recovered in recycling wastepaper contained in waste material packaged in compressed bale form by sufficiently wetting the baled waste material with a liquid that wastepaper cellulosic fibers will soften and swell prior to the waste material being subjected to the recycling pulping operation. A cellulosic fiber softening and swell-inducing liquid is injected at high velocities into the interior of each unbroken bale by bringing a jet establishing nozzle assembly connected to a high pressure source of the liquid into close adjacency with one or more exterior surfaces of the bale and discharging liquid from the nozzle assembly into the baled waste material for a predetermined time sufficient to wet the waste material, after which time the material in the wetted bale is allowed to sorb the fluid for a period as will result in cellulosic fibers in the waste material softening and swelling a substantial degree before the waste material is introduced into the recycling pulper. For some types of waste material bales superior results are produced by varying the injection velocities during intervals of the predetermined time of liquid injection.