Cellulose is the most abundant polymer on earth and the main component of paper and paper products. The high quality demands placed on paper today necessitate the addition of inorganic fillers and pigments., originally intended to save expensive fiber material. It was soon recognized that the properties of the paper could be increased and controlled by the fillers.

Our example shows an XRD phase analysis of a brown packaging paper: In addition to the fiber cellulose (68 weight %), it contains 32 weight % of fillers: talc, kaolinite and calcium carbonate.