White clouds gather over London - Specialist OBA conference to address key issues

This week sees a gathering of some European paper optical brightening agent specialists in London to discuss the current state of affairs.   In the midst of a continuing, very tough market environment and under threat from a number of key environmental issues, particularly the unsustainability of making paper whiter, whiter and whiter, dark clouds are gathering over this sector of the paper chemicals industry.  

It will therefore be inetresting to see if strategies can be developed for improving the sustainability and the environmental impact of using high levels of OBA to produce white papers. It is disappointing not to see any papers which specifically address the environmental impact, but perhaps the titles given by the speakers do not divulge everything which will be presented. It also would have strengthened the programme to have had contributions from the paper and board producers (users of OBAs).

The detailed programme for the conference, Optical Brighteners & Paper Whiteness, is available from the organiser Makowhiteness Project, and the following is a list of contributions:

OBA Market Conditions

Alec Tindal, Makowhiteness Ltd, UK (Consultant)

Factors Affecting OBA Performance

Martinez & Schoenenberger, IGCAR, Spain (Producer)

Lightfastness of OBAs

Olli Jokinen, Ciba SC, Finland (Producer)

Reaching the Highest Whites

David Puddiphatt, Clariant, Switzerland (Producer)

Paper Whiteness v’s Reproduction of Colour

Ole Norberg, Voxvil AB, Sweden (Whiteness Measurement)

White Paper Tinting (Shading Colours Technical)

Michael Kraemer, Kemira, Germany (Producer)

Optical Characterization of Paper as Basis for Printing & as Aesthetic Media

Claudio Puebla, Axiphos, Germany (Whiteness Measurement)

Shade Comparison in High White Papers

Alec Tindal, Makowhiteness Ltd, UK (Consultant)

Clariant, Kemira and Ciba (now BASF) are the leading producers of OBAs in Europe.