Logistics: Making a single sheet of copy paper

Anything that is worth knowing starts with a good question.

Today’s question is: What ingredients go into making a single sheet of paper, and how much of each is required to produce a single sheet of paper?

In this case we are going to address plain white printer paper.

I have in my possession a package of 500 sheets of 20 lb copy paper. It weighs 5 lbs.

So we can calculate that a single sheet of copy paper weighs: 0.01 lbs or 0.16 oz.

There are 2,000 lbs in 1 ton.

According to the book: "Paper Basics", Saltman, (1978)

The following ingredients go into making 1 ton of paper:

·         Water                55,000 gallons

·         Sulfur                102 lbs

·         MgOH               94 lbs

·         Lime                  350 lbs

·         Salt Cake           80 lbs

·         Caustic               66 lbs

·         Starch                108 lbs

·         Wood                 2 cords

·         Power                112 kilowatt hrs

·         Coal                   1.2 tons

·         Alum                  61 lbs

·         Clay                   289 lbs

·         Rosin                 16 lbs

·         Dye & Pigment   20 lbs

So we just divide each of these values by 2,000 lbs to find out how much of each ingredient it takes to make a pound of paper and then multiply by 0.01 lbs to see how much it takes of each ingredient to make 1 sheet of paper.

 Here’s what I came up with:

·         Water                    1.04 L (0.275 gallons)

·         Sulfur                     231.3 mg

·         MgOH                   213.2 mg

·         Lime (CaO)            793.8 mg

·         Salt Cake (NaCl)   181.4 mg

·         Caustic (NaOH)     149.7 mg

·         Starch                     244.9 mg

·         Wood                     1 x 10^-5 cords, which turns out to be 36.2 cm^3 of wood chips

·         Power                     0.56 Watt hrs

·         Coal                        5.4431 g

·         Alum                       138.3 mg

·         Clay                        655.4 mg

·         Rosin                      36.3 mg

·         Dye & Pigment       45.4 mg

So there you have it. This is what it takes to make a sheet of paper. So, you Chemists go out and cook up a sheet of paper for yourselves.