A pulp price list puts fluff and dissolving grades in the same column as bleached kraft, and the arrangement is misleading. They are produced from the same raw material by related processes, and then they leave the paper industry entirely. The properties that matter, the customers, and the way an inquiry has to be written are all different.
Fluff pulp
Fluff pulp is a bleached softwood kraft, typically from southern pine, supplied in rolls or bales to converters making absorbent hygiene products — nappies and training pants, feminine care, adult incontinence products, and airlaid materials.
The converter does not make paper from it. They defibrate it: a hammermill tears the sheet back into individual fibres, which are then formed into an absorbent core. Everything about the specification follows from that process rather than from papermaking.
- Defibration energy — how much work the hammermill must do to separate the fibres, and how cleanly they separate. Nits and knots left behind are defects in the final product.
- Absorbency and retention — how much liquid the formed pad takes up and holds under load.
- Bulk and resilience of the formed core.
- Debonder treatment, where the pulp is chemically treated to ease separation. Treated and untreated grades are not interchangeable.
Tensile strength — the first property a papermaker asks about — is nearly irrelevant here, and in some respects undesirable. A sheet that resists being torn apart is a sheet that costs more energy to defibrate.
Dissolving pulp
Dissolving pulp is further from paper again. It is a chemical feedstock: highly purified cellulose, used to make viscose and modal fibre, cellulose acetate, cellulose ethers and related products.
The governing property is alpha-cellulose content — the proportion of the pulp that is long-chain, chemically resistant cellulose, as distinct from hemicellulose and residual lignin. Viscose-grade dissolving pulp typically runs in the low nineties by percentage; acetate and specialty grades are produced to higher purity still.
Alongside it, buyers specify:
- Viscosity, which governs the behaviour of the cellulose in solution and therefore the downstream process.
- Hemicellulose and ash content, as impurities to be minimised.
- Reactivity — how readily the pulp dissolves and derivatises in the chemistry it is destined for.
- Brightness, which matters here for the end fibre rather than for printability.
A dissolving pulp inquiry without an end use is not answerable.
Viscose, acetate and ether applications demand different purity and viscosity profiles from mills that are often not interchangeable. "Dissolving pulp, 500 MT" describes a category, not a product.
What this means for an inquiry
For both grades, the usual three lines — grade, tonnage, port — are not enough. Add the application.
- Fluff: what is being made, whether the line requires treated or untreated pulp, and the form required — roll or bale.
- Dissolving: the end chemistry — viscose, acetate, ether or other — and the alpha-cellulose and viscosity requirements if they are fixed.
- Both: the mill, if the production line has been qualified on a particular one. For specialty grades this is common and it is not a preference but a constraint.
And a note on the rest of the list
BCTMP occupies a similar position for different reasons. It is a high-yield chemi-thermomechanical pulp bought for bulk and opacity in board and tissue, and it is defined by its process rather than primarily by the softwood-hardwood distinction that organises the kraft grades. An inquiry for BCTMP should state the end product, because the grades differ considerably by application.
The practical rule across all three: where a pulp is bought for what it does rather than for what it is made of, the inquiry has to say what it is for.
The grades we quote, with fibre source and typical application, are on the prime pulp page. The naming conventions behind the kraft grades are explained in pulp nomenclature.