An approach for application of ozone bleaching and nano‐filler loading on quality of papermaking from sorghum bagasse as a promise alternative non‐wood fiber

Abstract

Over the past years, non‐stop research and development has continued to find the most suitable bleaching sequence for each source of fibrous raw materials, both wood and non‐wood, by improving mixing technology. In this work, the role of ozone bleaching and nano‐filler loading on the quality of papermaking from sorghum bagasse as an alternative available agriculture residue in Egypt was studied. We bleached the sorghum Kraft pulp using D0EOD1 and ZEOD sequences to achieve a final high brightness and suitable mechanical strength. The quality of the pulp obtained is proved to be excellent for paper industry. CaCO3 nano‐filler was applied on bleached pulp sheets in order to decrease the production costs through increasing filler loading. The FTIR spectrum of this filler loaded on the pulp indicates the existence of some kind of bonds between them. In addition, it was observed that the particle size was reduced after the milling process. The nano‐filler significantly enhanced the retention and consequently all the paper optical properties. Addition of nano‐filler loading leads to improving brightness, opacity, scattering coefficient, and acceptable mechanical strength of sheet formation needed for papermaking. It is of interest to note that adopting the ZEOD sequence gave a brightness increase from 86 ISO in case of DoEOD1 to 90 ISO. Furthermore, the paper sheets filled with the nano‐filler, according to this sequence, improved the brightness to be 94.6 ISO, a value higher than that produced by the standard commercial filler of 93.3 ISO.