Wiktionary
n. A factory for making paper pulp from (usually) wood.
Wikipedia
A pulp mill is a manufacturing facility that converts wood chips or other plant fibre source into a thick fibre board which can be shipped to a paper mill for further processing. Pulp can be manufactured using mechanical, semi-chemical or fully chemical methods ( kraft and sulfite processes). The finished product may be either bleached or non-bleached, depending on the customer requirements.
Wood and other plant materials used to make pulp contain three main components (apart from water): cellulose fibres (desired for papermaking), lignin (a three-dimensional polymer that binds the cellulose fibres together) and hemicelluloses, (shorter branched carbohydrate polymers). The aim of pulping is to break down the bulk structure of the fibre source, be it chips, stems or other plant parts, into the constituent fibres.
Chemical pulping achieves this by degrading the lignin and hemicellulose into small, water-soluble molecules which can be washed away from the cellulose fibres without depolymerizing the cellulose fibres (chemically depolymerizing the cellulose weakens the fibres). The various mechanical pulping methods, such as groundwood (GW) and refiner mechanical (RMP) pulping, physically tear the cellulose fibres one from another. Much of the lignin remains adhering to the fibres. Strength is impaired because the fibres may be cut. Related hybrid pulping methods use a combination of chemical and thermal treatment to begin an abbreviated chemical pulping process, followed immediately by a mechanical treatment to separate the fibres. These hybrid methods include thermomechanical pulping (TMP) and chemithermomechanical pulping (CTMP). The chemical and thermal treatments reduce the amount of energy subsequently required by the mechanical treatment, and also reduce the amount of strength loss suffered by the fibres.
Usage examples of "pulp mill".
Lennie said, and produced the platinum money clip with the emeralds, the one given him in gratitude by the Other Woman after he had secured an acquittal for the heir to a pulp mill and timberlands fortune who had shot and killed what he thought was a prowler, but who had turned out to be his insomniac wife.
A few minutes later he came into the house and changed into an old shirt and a pair of ripped and faded pink slacks and drove off toward the smoking stacks of the pulp mill west of town.
A pulp mill up the fjord of Howe Sound stains the sky with an ash-white glaze.
I hear there's a space available down by the mud flats just across the bay from the pulp mill.
Quoyle made him think of a huge roll of newsprint from the pulp mill.
The smoke from the dump still drifted, and another line of hazy blue rose from the plantations in the hills, coming up from the edge of a clearing where they were harvesting the trees for the pulp mill farther up the shore of the firth.