mechanical refining process is utilized dilution water is added to the chips and the chips are run through a mechanical refiner in a number of sequential passes the number of passes of the chips pulp mixture will depend upon the freeness desired for the particular paper application to be made freeness is an arbitrary measure of water drainage the chip pulp mixture is repeatedly fed through the refiner until the desired level of freeness is achieved thus freeness may be periodically monitored to determine the progress of the pulps toward the freeness level which is desired for the paper the wood pulp may be dewatered as necessary between passes loblolly pine which has been incubated for a time period of four weeks with the procedures described above requires between ten and fifteen passes to obtain the value of 100 ml canadian standard freeness in a single disk mechanical refiner with an initial setting of 18 mils the overall energy efficiency of the process can be compared with that of a straight mechanical process by pulping in the same apparatus either untreated chips or treated chips while at the same time monitoring the energy consumption of the refining mill itself the treated chips require significantly less energy input through the refiner to achieve the same level of freeness in the resulting pulps the biomechanical pulps made through this procedure may then be made into paper using standard papermaking techniques standard techniques as described by the technical association of the pulp and paper industry tappi which are known to work with mechanically refined pulps work equally well with biomechanically refined pulps of the type.