Selected Grass Plants as Biomass Fuels and Raw Materials for Papermaking, Part II. Pulp and Paper Properties

Abstract

The yield and kappa number of kraft pulps from tall wheatgrass, tall fescue, tall oatgrass, and Miscanthus were determined after pulping with 0.9% active alkali per 1% lignin content in raw materials. Fibre properties and test papers were also studied to evaluate the usefulness of these plants for papermaking. These results were compared with pulps prepared from birch and pine wood. Kraft pulps from the straws of grasses had yields similar to that of pulp from pine wood and lower kappa numbers than pulps from birch and pine wood. The tested pulps exhibited a favourable number of fibres in 1 g of pulp, and they resulted in papers with clearly differentiated properties from very resistant to rupture dense papers with very low air permeability, to less resistant to breaking more bulky papers.

Properties and fibre characterisation of bleached hemp, birch and pine pulps: a comparison

“…Therefore, the pulp and paper industry, which produces about 40% of its products directly from wood, takes action to obtain fibres from forest plantations (Tarnawski 2006;Christersson 2010), producing papers and paperboards with a growing proportion of waste paper (Miranda et al 2010) and mechanical pulps (Ford and Sharman 1996) and seeking possibilities to increase the yield of kraft pulps from wood (Bach and Fiehn 1972;Hart and Rudie 2014). Another possibility to reduce the dependence of the industry on wood is to use non-wood plant fibrous raw materials (NPFRMs) to produce papermaking pulps (Guadalix et al 1996;Paavilainen 1998;Vargas et al 2012;Danielewicz et al 2015).…”

Papermaking as Potential Use of Fibers from Mexican Opuntia ficus-indica Waste

“…In agreement with this, tensile strength index for OFI waste pulp (36.0±5.0 Nm/g) is low in comparison with that of pine (76.1 Nm/g) and poplar (40.40 Nm/g) pulps. However, it is in the same range of pulp derived from non-wood fibers like sugarcane bagasse (38.2 Nm/g), rice straw (41.7 Nm/g) and sunflower stalks (43.64 Nm/g) (Khristova et al, 2006;Fišerová and Gigac, 2011;Sarwar Jahan et al, 2012;Mazhari Mousavi et al, 2013;Danielewicz et al, 2015).…”

Mild enzymatic treatment of bleached pulp for tissue production

“…The mechanical beating of the mixed beech and eucalyptus pulp (65% to 35% by w/w, respectively) was performed in a laboratory Jokro mill at a pulp consistency of 6 wt. % in time evaluated on the basis of our previous studies (Danielewicz et al 2015) in accordance with the PN-EN standard 25264-3 (1999). Jokro mill, similar to PFI mill, consists of several refining grooved rolls placed in containers and rotating at the same speed reaching 150 rpm.…”