Complex matters are ubiquitous in everyday life. It is also common in almost every aspect of pulp and paper operation. These are often the problems that have been outstanding for many years. Complexity science is emerging. This is a science of a highly interactive and hierarchical system of a large number of "elements". Elements can be actual materials, such as fibres, colloids, pigments, and cells, or more abstract objects, such as consumers and investors. Complexity science has originally grown from mathematics, computer science, statistical physics, and theoretical biology, but has now spread over many fields of science, engineering, sociology, and economics. In this review we take a few example problems encountered in paper chemistry and paper physics research, and look at how those problems can be seen from the complex science perspective. The objective is to introduce new concepts and approaches of complexity science to solve seemingly very difficult problems in pulp and paper industry. We suggest that many of the challenges that the industry is facing today are in fact the problems of complex systems.
CODEN: NPPJE