Technical aspects for surface, structure and print characterization of coated papers

Abstract

This paper focuses on the analysis of coated paper properties. The main subject of this paper is to find out ways to define and analyse coated paper properties, namely surface and structure, as well as, in a secondary position, printability. For that, several techniques were used: mercury intrusion porosimetry, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy and the technique of the contact angle measurements. The papers under study were produced in lab conditions with different coating pigments, such as ground calcium carbonate (GCC), precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) and kaolin, which were applied in coating colour with different formulations. The results show the potential of each technique and reveal the advantages of combining the information obtained by each one in order to have a large picture of the coated paper characteristics.