Corn stalk can be used as an alternative non-wood raw material to produce cellulosic dissolving grade pulp. In this work, the potential of corn stalk in the production of dissolving pulp (alpha-cellulose) was investigated. It was collect ed from a corn stalk farm of Kermanshah, Iran. The sequences of experimental work were: water and acid prehydrolysis at 160˚C for 30min, followed by Kraft pulp...

Kraft mills have the potential to pre-extract hemicellulose from wood as another value added product. The impacts of pre-extracting xylan on pulp and handsheet properties, sodium and sulfur balances, and chemical make-ups in the kraft pulping process of Eucalyptus grandis were assessed. Xylan extractions using white liquor, green liquor, and NaOH were done under varying extraction times, temper...

Enzymatic polymerization of lignin is an environmentally-friendly and sustainable method that is investigated for its potential in opening-up new applications of one of the most abundant biopolymers on our planet. In this work, the laccase from Myceliophthora thermophila was successfully immobilized onto Accurel MP1000 beads (67% of protein bound to the polymeric carrier) and the biocatalyzed o...

In the course of utilization of moso bamboo, some fractions are not effectively utilized due to the weakness in mechanical properties. Only a part of these residues are recovered for energy production or made into activated carbon; the remainder are discarded resulting in environment pollution (Mui et al., 2008). As the bamboo residue is a kind of polysaccharides-rich lignocellulosic material, ...

Common metrics for evaluating the efficiency of oxygen delignification include the kappa number and Klason lignin content. As a change in xylan content often leads to a change in HexA content, the kappa number must be corrected for the HexA contribution before evaluating the degree of oxygen delignification when trying to understand the process in detail. Questions could also be raised about th...

Kraft pulping is the dominant process currently used to produce chemical pulps, and has been applied for more than 130 years. A large number of studies have been conducted to gain a better understanding of the delignification kinetics as well as the reactions of the wood components being dissolved during the cooking process. Nevertheless, these remain far from being well understood in detail du...

Total reduced sulfurs (TRS) include hydrogen sulfide (H2S), methyl mercaptan (methanethiol, CH3SH), dimethyl sulfide (CH3SCH3) and dimethyl disulfide (CH3S2CH3) and are referred to as noncondensible gases. They are part of a well-known environmental problem afflicting pulp mills exploiting the Kraft pulp mill process. These sulfur compounds are formed in the Kraft pulping process and come in co...

To confer hydrophobic properties to Kraft pulp, an environmentally friendly process using laccase and lauryl gallate (LG) was developed. This treatment resulted in paper with very high water-barrier properties. The loss of hydrophobicity after acetone Soxhlet extraction highlighted the key role of adsorption phenomena on the introduction of pulp properties. GC-FID analysis of the extraction sup...

Sugarcane bagasse was delignified with alkali and peracetic acid in a two-stage process to obtain pulps with high yield and low kappa number. The experimental results indicated that alkali pretreatment prior to peracetic acid (PAA) delignification could significantly reduce PAA loading by partially removing lignin and swelling the fibers. An optimum condition for the two-stage delignification w...