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Texas ISD School Guide
Texas ISD School Guide







Short Stories for Teachers

How Is Paper Made?
By:Garik Tate

Everybody knows that paper is made out of trees. But what parts of the tree? How do they turn it white? Who were the first people to ever make paper? This article focuses on everything about paper.

Before we go into the process of paper making lets talk a little bit about where these techniques come from. True paper making originally came from china and is considered one of the 4 greatest inventions of ancient china. But before paper making the people of Egypt as relied on parchment and papyrus.

The Egyptians were the first people to use papyrus. Where before this the Greeks were using blocks of wood covered in wax to write. However with the creation of the library of Alexandria the vast majority of the papyrus plant was being used up. So then people began using parchment. Parchment was actually invented by man called Eumenes when he was creating a rival library.

For a long time people believed that Cai Lun was the first person to invent paper (105 AD). However it has been found that paper was being used for almost 300 years earlier. The first known paper to have been created was used for wrapping expensive mirrors and other delicate artifacts. However it is still believed today that Cain Lun was the first to use a more modern paper making technique.

Ok now that we have talked a little bit about the history of paper let's go into how it is actually made. Modern paper making isn't actually that different from ancient paper making its only a bit modified to allow for easier mass production. Paper making can be divided into 8 steps.

1. The first step after the trees are cut (as in the trees are already in the paper making factory) is taking the bark off the tree. They do this by rotating the trees and having them rub against each other which removes the bark.

2. The second step is chipping it. Which means the huge logs are turned into thousands of little chips of wood.

3. The third steps clean out the wood so only the usable parts are left. There are 2 ways to do this. The first way is called chemical pulping. They basically soak and cook the chips in sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide. This creates an awful smell but is highly efficient. The second way is called mechanical pulping. Mechanical pulping is just what it sounds like they grind the wood into pulp. Though this makes more usable wood for the following steps it makes the paper much lower quality.

4. The fourth step is called bleaching. Bleaching is used to purify what is left of the wood. Extra bleaching is used if chemical pulping was the method used in the previous step.

5. The fifth step is where the word paper machine comes into play. The paper machine soaks the wood fiber in water and certain minerals (but mostly water). Then they crush the paper to squeeze out the water. Then they dry it out with heaters. In some of the more high quality machines here they also coat it with certain chemicals and minerals to make higher quality paper.

6. The sixth step is where they apply a thin coating to make it easier to write or print on.

7. The seventh step is used to make the paper smooth and basically involves heating up the paper and putting it through giant rollers.

8. The eighth and final step is called sheet converting. Here they cut up the paper into little sheets that you fine in your notebooks and ship them out.






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