An important application for ozone is pulp bleaching. Chlorine is a major pulp bleaching agent, but its application is declining as other bleaching agents take its place such as chlorine dioxide and ozone.
Even in developing countries, efforts are being made to move toward alternatives such as ozone. The Indian company lTC recently launched an environment friendly paper which has been crafted by ITC using a pioneering technology, which is first of its kind in India called “Ozone Treated Elemental Chlorine Free technology”.
Conventionally, elemental Chlorine was used in the bleaching process during paper manufacture. The byproducts of this process include large number of organo-chlorine chemicals, which are toxic and adversely impact the environment. Chlorine dioxide was the second generation technology for preventing the emissions of toxic compounds. Ozone bleaching virtually eliminates the production of byproducts with better results than chlorine dioxide bleaching.
The growing success of ozone in the pulp and paper industry is just another indication of the versatility of ozone and ozone generators.