Early in its developmental program on pigments for paper coatings, Specialty Minerals Inc. (SMI) realized the need to scale up our experimental products and to optimize the use of our commercial products. The Centre International de Couchage, Inc. (CIC) began operations in January, 2000 as a world class, state-of-the-art pilot coater in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, Canada. Minerals Technologies Inc., through its subsidiary, Minteq Canada, is one of three owners of CIC, which was planned and built with the future of paper coating technology in mind. The operating philosophy is to maintain parity with the best of present technology and adopt new technology as it becomes commercially available. CIC operates as an independent, for-profit entity and is managed by its own technical committee with the owners involved in its direction and advancement. This arrangement ensures that client confidentiality and privacy are maintained.
The CIC pilot coater is built around a Valmet Opti-Systems™ coating machine design. The elevated coating kitchen is arguably the best pilot coating kitchen ever installed, with adjacent tote storage racks, the capability of handling up to four totes simultaneously, and room next to the kitchen for fork truck maneuvering. Multiple mix tanks are on load cells for increased formulating accuracy. At a design speed of 3,000 m/min, the coater is the fastest available. Because of its capability for both high-speed and high-quality performance, as a development resource, CIC provides an operating environment with capabilities that are beyond even the most advanced commercial paper machine coaters anywhere in the world.
Currently, maximum production speed is 2,500 m/min. Coating application can be achieved via the OPTISIZER™ metered size press or the OPTICONCEPT™ coater, which includes both rigid and flexible blade, as well as short dwell applications. The coating can be applied to the sheet with either a roll or a jet applicator. Blade applications use the AUTOBLADE™ loading technology. The coating is dried using a combination of both electrical and gas-fired infrared dryers and four units of forced air dryers. For finishing, the paper can be soft nip calendered on machine through two nips. Off-line, up to 11 nips of supercalendering are available on a full-scale commercial calender stack. The paper then can be rewound for web applications or cut into sheets. Full laboratory services are available for the finished product as well as testing the coating during production. To maintain high productivity, up to 10 coatings per day or 16 blade passes per day can be run with ease. This arrangement also maintains flexibility. Up to 8 C2S single coated rolls, 4 C2S double coated rolls, or 10-16 C1S rolls per day can be produced.
After each trial, CIC trial managers prepare an in-depth report on all of the parameters monitored during the trial, from base paper and coating characteristics to web temperatures through the dryer section. Each report includes the details of every trial point, from the base paper used and its characteristics, to the coating application, coating color characteristics, web temperatures, drying energy, and calendering. Finally, to be sure that every customer expectation is known and met, CIC provides each customer with an opportunity to complete a survey at the end of the trial. Suggestions are quickly implemented into practice. CIC goes to great lengths to meet customer needs, even providing such amenities as a customer room off the coater head area, equipped with telephone and high speed internet access, and small kitchen area.
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