The papermaking process involves several steps. Idempapers manufacturing process is detailed as follows:
- Idempapers is a non-integrated manufacturer of paper because the company buys pulp as raw material. An integrated manufacturer would have a manufacturing process that has trees as raw materials. These trees will eventually be pulped.
- The pulp, which is in the solid state, is first dissolved in water.
- The pulp in the liquid state is then refined. Refining gives specific properties to paper such as stiffness, strength, smoothness and opacity.
- The refined pulp is then pumped to the paper machine and is released on the “wire”. A “web” is formed which is the first step in the transformation of the pulp into paper.
- The web thus formed reaches the press section. The goal here is simply to remove as much water as possible by compressing the paper.
- The paper is then dried with steam-heated cylinders.
- Idempapers manufactures value-added papers by adding coatings on "coating heads" that are inline behind the paper machine. These coatings provide new properties to paper, for example to make copies for carbonless or absorb and fix the ink for IDEM Poster Digital.
- After the coatings have been dried, the paper can also be calendered as on the Idempapers machine 4. The calendering makes the paper smoother and more glossy.
- The paper is wound into large rolls, before being converted into smaller reels and sheets according to customers’ needs.