Industrial Hemp as a Potential Fibrous Raw Material for European Kraft Pulp Mills (EKPM) – A Review

Abstract

The issue of suitability of industrial hemp (IH) for large-scale European pulp mills, referred to in this study as EKPM mills, was discussed, taking into account the causal, cultivation, technological, and application aspects of this issue. The work showed that there are premises for the use of non-wood fibrous raw materials (NFRM) in these mills. As for the IH, it was found that IH stalks are the best IH FRM for EKMP. There are few cultivation factors (CF) favouring the use of IH stalks in them and few, though important (e.g., small cultivation areas), factors not conducive to this use. Most of the technological factors (TF) favour the use of IH in EKPM, apart from the large differences in the length of the IH bast and woody-core fibres. The analysis of application factors (AF) indicates lower usefulness of IH than wheat/rye/triticale straws, Miscanthus giganteus, Virginia mallow, and kenaf due to the much greater availability of these cereal straws than IH and less variation in fibre length of cereal straw, Miscanthus giganteus, Virginia mallow, and kenaf than in IH stalks. The presence of IH variety/ies with fibre lengths more similar to wood would reduce the number of TF and AF factors unfavourable to their use in EKPM.

Sida hermaphrodita Rusby as a papermaking raw material – Chemical and morphological characteristics

“…The value of the index determining the number of fibers in a mass unit is influenced by the length of fibers and the coarseness, which may be defined as the mass of the length unit of statistical fibre (Danielewicz 2013). This parameter determines the number of fibres in paper with a specific basis weight, and also the ability of fibres to form fibre-to-fibre bonds, and it depends on two important fibre properties: fibre width and fibre wall thickness (Danielewicz and Surma-Ślusarska 2010).…”