A Review on the Modeling, Control and Diagnostics of Continuous Pulp Digesters

Moksadur Rahman,Konstantinos Kyprianidis,Anders Avelin

doi:10.3390/pr8101231

Abstract

Being at the heart of modern pulp mills, continuous pulp digesters have attracted much attention from the research community. In this article, a comprehensive review in the area of modeling, control and diagnostics of continuous pulp digesters is conducted. The evolution of research focus within these areas is followed and discussed. Particular effort has been devoted to identifying the state-of-the-art and the research gap in a summarized way. Finally, the current and future research directions in the areas have been analyzed and discussed. To date, digester modeling following the Purdue approach, Kappa number control using model predictive controllers and health index-based diagnostic approaches by utilizing different statistical methods have dominated the field. While the rising research interest within the field is evident, we anticipate further developments in advanced sensors and integration of these sensors for improving model prediction and controller performance; and the exploration of different AI-based approaches will be at the core of future research.

Highlights

With the widespread expansion of the Internet, electronic media and paperless communication, the demand for the graphic paper has been declining since 2000 [1]
The present work focused on the review of available literature within the area of modeling, control and diagnostics of continuous pulp digesters
If we look at recent trends, pulp digester modeling studies are more application focused

Summary

Introduction

With the widespread expansion of the Internet, electronic media and paperless communication, the demand for the graphic paper (i.e., newsprint and higher-value printing and writing paper) has been declining since 2000 [1]. Despite this downfall, the global pulp and paper market is growing steadily at a rate of over 1% per year [2]. Pulp and paper mills convert wood chips into a fibrous mass called pulp, the raw material for different paper products. The production of pulp is commercially accomplished by a mechanical or chemical pulping process or a combination of both methods. More than two-thirds of the globally produced pulp comes from sulfate or Kraft pulping mills [3]

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