From ancient times to the present, the paper industry has always been a traditional craft using plant fibers as raw materials. With the continuous increase in the price of wood pulp and the cost of recycling waste paper, as well as the enhancement of environmental protection awareness of forest resources, people continue to strengthen and optimize the papermaking process, look for substitutes or partial substitutes for paper fiber raw materials, and hope to be more environmentally friendly and green. way to inherit the papermaking craftsmanship. Today, a new type of papermaking material, fibrous minerals, can be used to partially replace plant fiber raw materials.

The new fibrous mineral raw material is natural wollastonite from Jiangxi Province, which is gray-white and is a chain metasilicate. Its crystal form is divided into α-type and β-type, α-type is powdery, and β-type is needle-like or fibrous. The main content of SiO2 in wollastonite is generally about 45-50%, and the content of CaO is about 48%. The fibrous mineral is nontoxic, has low oil and water absorption, good thermal and chemical stability, and high whiteness, and can be used as a functional filler for materials such as papermaking, rubber and plastics.

The distinguishing features of fibrous minerals are:

1. Fibrous minerals can partially replace plant fibers, and the dosage can reach about 15%, which can effectively save plant fibers, reduce production costs, and have good economic and social benefits.

2. There is a certain binding force between fibrous minerals and pulp fibers, and they have good affinity, especially after adding an appropriate amount of chemical additives, the two can form a good network structure. In addition to a slight decrease in the breaking length of the paper without adding fibrous minerals, the whiteness, opacity, printing surface strength, ash content, etc. are all improved.

3. The fibrous minerals are easy to operate in papermaking production and application, do not need to change the original process and equipment, the process is simple, the addition method is basically the same as that of talc powder, and the dosage can be adjusted at any time according to the production variety or production situation. The fibrous mineral is non-toxic, non-corrosive, non-polluting to the environment, and is used in a similar manner to ordinary fillers, which is conducive to popularization and acceptance by enterprises, and is a papermaking additive with good development prospects.