Characterization of pulp produced from sugarcane bagasse and rice straw

Abstract

The amount of sugarcane bagasse and rice straw are abundant while its utilization are still limited. One of the alternatives for the bagasse and straw utilization are as pulp raw material. This paper reviews pulp produced from sugarcane bagasse and rice straw and its suitability for paper production. In this study, the pulp was extracted by the Soxhlet extraction method. The cellulose, lignin and silica content of the pulp produced from sugarcane bagasse and rice straw was investigated. For rice straw, there are large amount of pentosanes in the pulp and black liquors, which also contain silica. Therefore, formic acid pulping and NaOH treatment were needed to reduce or prevent silica. The isolated pulp samples were further characterized by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to investigate their fiber dimensions.