A Novel Eco-Alkali Chemistry in Newspaper Flotation Deinking

Performance and efficiency of fresh offset-printed daily Croatian newspaper deinked by novel chemistry, named Eco-alkali, were investigated in this study. Eco-alkali is naturally gained alkali prepared from domestic by-product wood fly ash collected after hardwood ignition. Brightness, opacity and effective residual ink concentration (ERIC) as optical properties were evaluated for the deinked pulp before and after flotation. Lingering ink particles and their total surface area were measured by image analysis method. Experimental results are compared to the pulp deinked with worldwide accepted method INGEDE Method 11 using identical steps through the whole deinking process. The findings obtained from present work, especially removing particle efficiency results before flotation, indicated that eco-alkali have potential to be used in flotation deinking of newspapers.