Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Digesters


This building, as tall as a grain elevator, houses four wood chip digesters. A conveyor brought in wood chips to the top floor, and piping brought in caustic soda and sodium sulfide.

The digester itself is a tall cylinder built to withstand the heat and pressure of the process that takes a few hours to degrade the lignin and cellulose polymers in the wood into smaller pieces useful for paper making.

There's an excellent diagram of the plant layout on page 98 of a recent environmental report; see the Remedial Investigation Work Plan.

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