A novel method for the determination of black liquor viscosity by multiple headspace extraction gas chromatography

This work demonstrates a novel method for the determination of viscosity in the concentrated black liquors from pulp mill recovery process. The method is based on the kinetic release of methanol (a vapor tracer) to the headspace in a sample closed vial by a multiple headspace extraction gas chromatographic technique. Both theoretical and empirical models were proposed for establishing the correlation with the reference method. The results showed that the correlation using either of the models is excellent for the tested black liquor samples (at 110 degrees C). The presented method is simple and practical and can be a valuable tool for black liquor viscosity related research and applications. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.