TODAY’S PATENT – SOFT TISSUE

This Soft Tissue was invented by  Theodore E. Farrington, Jr. (Appleton, WI), Julia S. Bahlman (Appleton, WI), Mark A. Burazin (Appleton, WI), Fung-jou Chen (Appleton, WI), Kristin A. Goerg (Appleton, WI), Michael A. Hermans (Neenah, WI), Robert J. Makolin (Neenah, WI), and Michael J. Rekoske (Appleton, WI). It was patented by the USPTO on  March 4, 1997 bearing patent number US5607551A.

The present invention relates to soft tissues. Yankee dryers are not necessary to produce soft through dried tissues that are soft enough to be used as high-end washroom tissues. Wet end rush transfer and through-drying fabric design take the place of the traditional Yankee functions of constructing machine direction and cross-machine direction stretch, respectively. Using at least one layer of chemi-mechanically treated fibres to produce the tissue has special benefits. The resultant tissues are lowly stiff and have a high mass (about 6 cubic centimetres per gram or more).

Recent research has revealed that specific pretreatment papermaking fibres can be used in the right way to create tissues with characteristics that make them especially useful as bath tissues. It is preferred to use a through-drying tissue-making procedure where the tissue web is uncreped and not stuck to a Yankee dryer. Comparing the resulting tissues of this invention to existing creped bath tissue products, and particularly to previous uncreped through-dried goods, they exhibit a unique combination of high bulk and low stiffness.