RECYCLING POTENTIAL OF SACCHARUM MUNJA PULP

Abstract

Internationally, Wood is primary fibrous raw material for paper making. But, the supply of wood based raw Material to - the Indian paper industry is inadequate. The Indian paper. industry is making continuous effort to alternative of woody .raw materials. The nonwoods . and wastepaper are widely used raw materials by small scale paper mills in India, The nonwood pulp -fibers have high specific surface area and high fines contents that give . better -printing , characteristics than those of softwood pulps. Nonwoods have also benefits- of low cost and easy availability of raw material when compared With wood. In. a resent study (1) recycling potential of bagasse and wheat straw pulps have been evaluated. It was observed that on recycling of the wheat straw pulps the loss in tensile strength was quite low in comparison - to the loss in bagasse and wood pulps. The recycling behavior of bagasse pulp was quite similar to that of wood pulps. `Sarkanda', Saccharum - munja is another important nonwood raw. material used by Indian paper. mill'..Mills using bagasse and wheat straw as raw material also use sarkanda to maintain the raw material supply in off seasons of bagasse and wheat straw. In the present study, - we have attempted to evaluate the recycling potential of sarkanda, and compared wheat straw and softwood pulps. The Saccharum munja was procured from M/S Shri 'Badri. Kedar paper mill Ltd. Najibabad (U.P.) and was pulped In the laboratory batch digester. The raw material was screened on a 20-me8h screen and then washed with water to remove very fine material and -other non cellulosic impurities. The effect of alkali dose during .soda pulping of sarkanda was evaluated.- It was found that a 12% alkali dose (as NaOH) is sufficient to pulp a bleachable pulp at 165°C for 45min. Each pulping' experiment was repeated. for two times.. For final, pulping two batches were pulped separately (I500g o.d. raw material) and bleached separately using CEHH bleaching sequence. One sample . of wheat . straw pulp was procured from M/S Shreyans Industries Ltd., Maridi Ahmedgarh (Pb) and another pulp sample of wheat straw was prepared in the laboratory, from wheat straw procured from near by village area. Both mill made and laboratory prepare wheat straw unbleached pulps were bleached in the laboratory-using CEHH sequence.- 'The bleached softwood pulp pads . were procured from M/S Shreyans Industries Ltd., Mandi Ahmedgarh (Pb) to compare the recycling behavior of sarkanda pulp.