Pulp futures

Introduction of pulp concept and industry chain

Pulp is the main raw material of the paper industry, which belongs to the upstream of the entire paper industry, and the paper industry is a typical long chain, heavy assets, and a long cycle industry with diverse needs: the typical paper industry chain is "forest-pulp-papermaking - all kinds of paper downstream". Among them, the cultivation of rapid growth forest for pulping requires reserve forest land and cultivation, and the maturity cycle of trees is longer, requiring at least 5 years to be harvested for production. The production of pulp and machine-made paper needs to purchase large paper making equipment and supporting production capacity, the cycle is about 2-3 years; The growth rate of all types of downstream demand has slowed down after experiencing China's high-speed growth stage, and cyclicality is gradually replacing growth.

According to the national economic industry classification standard, the paper industry mainly refers to the paper and paper products manufacturing industry, including pulp manufacturing industry, paper industry, paper products manufacturing industry three links; Therefore, the paper industry is highly related to some basic industries, such as forestry, agriculture, printing, packaging, machinery manufacturing, chemical industry, environmental protection and so on. In general, the paper industry has the characteristics of intensive technology capital, significant economies of scale, high resource dependence and consumption, and relatively dispersed industry concentration.

1.1. Paper pulp

paper pulp (paper pulp; pulp is a fibrous substance made from plant fiber by destroying lignin through different processing methods. The plants commonly used as raw materials for pulping can be divided into four categories: stem fibers, bast fibers, seed wool fibers and wood fibers. Among them, wood fiber is the most important. At present, China's wood resources can not meet the needs of the growing pulp and paper industry. In order to make up for the shortage of raw materials, a considerable amount of pulp is imported from abroad every year.

Pulp is generally used to make paper and board. In addition to the manufacture of special paper, refined pulp is often used as a raw material for the manufacture of cellulose esters, cellulose ethers and other cellulose derivatives. It is also used in artificial fibers, plastics (8070, 35.00, 0.44%), coatings, film, gunpowder and other fields.

1.1.1. Source of raw materials 1.1.1. Raw material source

Pulp is mainly divided into wood pulp, waste pulp and non-wood pulp. Wood pulp is divided into broadleaf pulp (including birch, poplar, linden, eucalyptus, maple and other species of wood pulp) and coniferous pulp (including masson pine, larch, red pine, spruce and other species of wood pulp), broadleaf trees are also known as angiosperms, hardwood, deciduous trees or evergreen trees, coniferous trees commonly known as gymnosperms or softwood, generally coniferous pulp has stronger toughness and extensibility than broadleaf pulp, Therefore, in the use of wood pulp, a certain proportion of coniferous pulp is usually added to enhance the toughness of paper.

Waste pulp is the paper pulp that is sorted and screened after the waste paper is recycled, soaked with warm water, and then repulped for reuse.

There are three main types of non-wood pulp: grass fiber pulp (such as straw, wheatgrass, reed, bamboo, bagasse, etc.), bast fiber pulp (such as hemp, kenaf, flax, mulberry bark, cotton stalk bark, etc.) and seed wool fiber pulp (such as cotton fiber, etc.).

1.1.2. Process classification

Pulp according to the processing technology is divided into mechanical pulping, chemical pulping, semi-chemical pulping. Mechanical pulping refers to the method of making pulp from fiber raw materials (mainly wood) by simply using mechanical grinding, and its products are collectively referred to as mechanical pulp; Chemical pulping refers to the method of making pulp by treating raw materials with chemical agents, and its products are collectively referred to as chemical pulp; Semi-chemical pulping (also known as chemical mechanical pulping) refers to the pulping method using chemical pretreatment and mechanical grinding after treatment, and its products are collectively referred to as chemical pulp (CMP).

In addition, pulp according to the degree of processing is divided into refined pulp, bleached pulp, semi-bleached pulp and this color paste, such a classification standard is mainly the degree of bleaching of pulp, different whiteness of pulp is also used in different paper industry because of its different properties, such as bleached sulfate wood pulp can be used to manufacture advanced printing paper, painting newspaper, offset paper and writing paper. This color paste is mainly used for making medium printing paper, thin wrapping paper, translucent paper and greaseproof paper.

1.2. (Bleached needle pulp) Pulping Process 1.2. (needle pulp) pulping process

The chemical pulping method is adopted for the bleached needle pulp, and its industrial manufacturing process mainly includes raw material storage and chipping, cooking, washing, screening, bleaching, drying, slicing and packing. In the specific manufacturing process, the whole tree log is first taken, peeled and cut into smaller wood chips, and the qualified wood chips are cooked with sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and sodium sulfide (Na2S) solution for 1 to 2 hours. Depending on the concentration of active chemical components, the cooking liquid may be partially recovered to improve efficiency. The cooking process removes the lignin, breaking down the wood into cellulose fibers. The coarse pulp after cooking is washed by the pulp washing machine, and the large debris is removed by the pulp screening machine to obtain the fine pulp. After the fine pulp is bleached and concentrated in several stages, the wet pulp board is made and sent to the dryer for drying. Finally, after slicing and packaging, the resulting pulp can be delivered in the form of pulp packaging.