The effect of hemicellulose extraction of pine wood chips by water prehydrolysis on subsequent kraft cooking and paper properties was studied. Prehydrolysis reduced the required cooking time by approximately 40% and increased kappa number reduction in oxygen delignification. Prehydrolysis decreased the overall brownstock pulp yield on wood by 7.2 percentage units. Consequently, valuable products would need to be produced from the prehydrolyzate to compensate for the resulting increase in wood

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... nsumption. In DED-bleaching, lower bleaching chemical dosages were needed with prehydrolyzed than with unhydrolyzed pulps to obtain similar final brightness. As expected, removal of hemicelluloses led to a decrease in the tensile index and increase in the tear index. At a given density, the strength potential of prehydrolyzed pulps was higher than that of unhydrolyzed pulps. There was an up to more than fivefold increase in beating revolutions in a PFI-mill needed to obtain comparable tensile indices. This significant reduction in beating response might pose problems in the commercialization of prehydrolyzed pulps. In general, differences between the paper properties of prehydrolyzed pulps and unhydrolyzed pulps are attributed to decreased inter-fiber bonding in prehydrolyzed pulps.