Newsprint (Standard / Speciality / Improved) Producers / Manufacturers

WHAT IS NEWSPRINT PAPER?

Charles Fenerty, a Canadian poet from Nova Scotia, invented the wood pulp process for papermaking, which was first adapted into the production of newsprint paper in 1844. An off-white and uncoated paper, newsprint is made on using mechanical, chemical, and deinked wood-pulp fibers. The mechanical pulp content in newsprint gives it better opaqueness and print quality, while its chemical pulp content strengthens the paper web and keeps it intact during processing through paper machines and printing presses.

Falling in the grammage range of 40 to 65 GSM, newsprint is inexpensive, durable, and suitable for four-color printing. Not surprisingly, it is a popular paper choice around the world for newspapers, advertising materials, and other mass-produced publications. It is regularly used in a long web of paper in offset, letterpress, and flexographic printing.

Apart from printing purposes, newsprint paper can be used as for filler for boxes, tray liners, wrapper, and packaging purposes.

NEWSPRINT MANUFACTURING

Newsprint, traditionally, is made by processing debarked and chipped woods from spruce, fir, pine, and other softwood trees in a mechanical pulp mill. Wood from hardwood trees is also sometimes used. In the processing, the wood process into wood pulp. Since the production of newsprint must be cost-effective, the processed wood pulp does not undergo the expensive and time-consuming chemical process to remove all traces of lignin from it. Lignin is a substance that, along with cellulose and hemicellulose, occurs naturally in wood and tends to turn dark when exposed to sunlight and oxygen. Since the wood pulp that is used to make newsprint retains its lignin content, the resulting newsprint is rendered vulnerable to sun exposure. The lignin molecules in the paper darken as they get oxidized, and this causes the paper to turn yellow. With further sun exposure, the paper also becomes brittle.

In addition to wood pulp, vegetable fibers and recycled fibers are used to make newsprint. The fibers are divided into two parts, with one apportioned to mechanical pulping and the other to chemical processing. The two processed pulps are then combined, and the paper that results from the combination is bright, opaque, and with a high tear strength. To make low strength papers, the wood pieces must only undergo mechanical pulping and forgo the chemical pulping.

Newsprint manufacturing requires specialized machinery for pulping wood and other materials, for refining the resultant pulp, to remove contaminations and impurities, and making paper. After diluting the pulp with water to achieve the desired pulp consistency, the pulp slurry is processed on a paper machine. As the pulp moves along on a moving wire screen, its water content drains off, the pulp fibers start to adhere by bonding together, and the paper starts to take form. The newly-created paper web then undergoes heavy pressing between rollers to squeeze out water. It is then dried on drying cylinders and winded into parent rolls. Later the parent rolls are rewound to cut the paper into desired width paper rolls that are then shipped off.

Pulping Processes for Newsprint Production

There are two main pulping processes for commercial production of newsprint.

Thermomechanical Pulping

The wood for the papermaking is debarked and cut into small pieces that are further chipped to form wood chips. These chips then undergo a high-intensity steaming process to soften them up for the next step, which is pulping. Without the prior steaming, pulping the chips would take much longer.

Thermochemical Pulping

The wood chips are chemically treated before pulping, and this treatment facilitates the separation of their fibers to such an extent that the resulting fibers retain their flexibility, strength, and length. This leads to the creation of brighter, denser, and higher strength papers.

Wood pulp is more favored for making paper than various other plant sources such as reed, straw, and bagasse. The reason for this is the longer length of wood fibers as compared to that of fibers from the other plant sources. In addition, wood fibers also possess a robust forte that sees them withstand pulping, bleaching, and paper processing to form a bright, opaque paper. On the other hand, plant fibers, given their shorter lengths, are incapable of withstanding the same production processes as wood pulp.

Both high strength and low strength papers are produced using these processes and machinery. The high strength paper is produced using a combination of thermomechanical and thermochemical processes, while the weak strength paper only needs to undergo the thermomechanical process.

NEWSPRINT GRADES

Newsprint comes in three main grades, standard newsprint, improved newsprint, and specialty newsprint. In addition, many other types of newsprint are available in the market for a range of purposes.

Standard Newsprint

Most newspapers around the world are printed in standard newsprint. Its popularity stems from its sheer affordability. It is inexpensive, but, on the flipside, it is also thin and non-archivable. This type of newsprint will deteriorate over time, but given the transient nature of newspapers, this is probably not an issue for newspaper publishers.

Improved Newsprint

The color supplements and outer pages that often come with regular newspapers and which standout for their better paper quality are usually printed on improved newsprint. It is slightly thicker, brighter, and somewhat smoother in texture than standard newsprint and prints colors very well. Often, it is used for printing the color newspaper sections while the other sections get are printed on standard newsprint.

Specialty Newsprint

Advertising pamphlets and other colorful printed materials generally require full-color and four-color printing processes, and this means that the paper they use must be thicker, capable of absorbing color well, and strong enough to withstand being processed through the printers. Specialty newsprint, which is thicker than standard newsprint and improved newsprint, fulfills these requirements.

Other Types of Newsprint

Newsprint comes in varying degrees of thicknesses and varying color ranges. In addition to standard and improved newsprint, newspaper publishers like pastel-colored newsprint and use it for the tabloid sections. The term ‘yellow journalism’ arose from this preference. Very thin newsprint varieties are used to print thick phone books.

NEWSPRINT PROPERTIES

Newsprint must be printable, tear-resistant, opaque, dimensionally stable, and not dry enough to collect dust.

• The high percentage of mechanical wood pulp in newsprint makes it very receptive to printing inks. They are absorbed fast into the paper, increasing printing efficiency.
• Since newsprint is processed through fast-moving printing presses, it must be strong enough to pass through them without tearing up. This newsprint property is called its runnability and newsprint is said to have good runnability if it can emerge intact from the printing machines.
• The newsprint must also have at least 6% to 8% water content to avoid dryness and to maintain its dimensional stability. The latter is essential for correct printing.

Newsprint Primer