Woodfree paper is made from wood
To understand what woodfree paper really is, you need insight into the production process.
Some books, especially educational books, have traditionally been printed on so-called woodfree paper. To understand the difference between woodfree and wood containing paper, you need an insight into the production process. Because the raw material is the same – both paper types are made from trees.
In the paper making process, you can separate the wood fibres either chemically or mechanically.
Lignin comes from latin, meaning "wood"
In the chemical pulping process you separate the fibres with the help of heat, high pressure and chemicals. The lignin, a natural binder between the cellulose fibres in the wood, is removed from the pulp. The word lignin originates from the latin word 'lignum', meaning 'wood', so papers where the lignin has been removed are called “woodfree”, even though they originate from wood and contain cellulose fibres from trees.
In the thermomechanical pulping process (TMP), the wood chips are softened with heat and steam and then mechanically separated into individual fibres. In this process the lignin stays in the paper, making it known as “wood-containing” paper.
Cellulose fibres from trees
So woodfree does not equal “tree-free”. Both paper types contain cellulose fibres from trees, and the wood used is pulpwood from thinning and residual wood chips from sawmills.
No trees are harvested just to make paper. Innovation has advanced the paper industry, and today wood-containing papers can replace woodfree papers in many applications. The way we see it, when all parts of the wood can be used as a raw material, paper-making becomes more resource-efficient, and our natural papers provide excellent reading and writing comfort.
Learn about the paper-making process in this step-by-step guide.