Impact of embossing on liquid absorption of toilet tissue papers

Absorption capacity is a key feature of toilet tissue papers. Several parameters can affect their final absorption capacities, such as pulp composition, stock preparation, number of sheets, additives, bulk, grammage, and converting process parameters, such as the embossing operation. In this work, the absorption capacities of four different 2-ply industrial toilet tissue papers, as well as the respective base papers from the mother-reel was compared using the immersion method according to ISO 12625-8 (2010). Previously, these samples were characterized in terms of morphology, grammage, thickness, and bulk. It was concluded that the embossing operation noticeably increased the thickness and bulk of toilet tissue paper. Furthermore, it was also verified that among the various toilet tissue paper samples there was not a noticeable variation in the time of water absorption because the samples revealed similar morphology and porosity. However, it was found that the bulk increased more than 150%, resulting in an increase of water absorption capacity over 60%.