The influence of drying conditions on the chemical characteristics of bagasse recycled pulp

Abstract

In this research, the influence of paper drying condition, as one of the most important variable in paper recycling, on the characteristics of fibers was studied. In this respect, bagasse soda pulp was collected from Pars Paper mill in Khozestan province and handsheets were made. The control hand sheet samples were dried at room temperature and the rest of the handsheets were dried using drum dryer set at 60° C for 3 hours, 100° C for 50 minutes and 120° C for 25 minutes to reach the same moisture content as the sheets dried at room temperature. Then, these handsheets were slushed in water and the pulp properties were determined. The results showed that with increasing the drying temperature, cellulose content did not change while hemicelluloses were reduced. Although the assessment of changing the lignin content with micro kappa method showed an increasing trend, but based on previous literature, it was concluded that the result are not justified. Also, the results indicated that changing the degree of polymerization and crystallinity did not show a consistent trend, showing initial reduction following by increased values. These results were attributed to interaction effect of drying temperature and time.

Keywords

• drying
• Bagasse
• recycling
• Chemical composition
• crystallinity
• degree of polymerization