The effect of in-line foam generation on foam quality and sheet formation in foam forming

Foam forming has recently attracted increasing interest due to the paper industry's continual efforts to find new possibilities to minimize raw material consumption, and to improve energy and water efficiency. Foam forming is also thought to be a possible solution to the industry's need to widen its product portfolio with novel and more valuable products. In foam forming, foam properties (air content, bubble size and half-life) are obviously key process variables, but there are only a few studies in which their effect on the sheet properties have been studied in pilot conditions. Moreover, all previous studies have used foam generated in stirring tanks, and there are hitherto no studies in which in-line foam generation has been considered. In this paper both these gaps are filled with experiments performed in VTT's pilot foam forming environment. The combination of tank and in-line generation was found to work well in foam forming, providing extra flexibility for foam generation and decreasing surfactant needs. The results show that foam forming generally improves formation, but the foam quality can have a significant effect on sheet properties.