Characterization of cellulose and pulp obtained from rice straw plants of diferent pulping process using scanning eletron microscpy (SEM)

Abstract

Non-wood raw materials account for 5-7 % of the lotal pulp and paper production worldwide Production of pulp from non-wood resources has many advantages such as easy pulping capability. In this study, the formic acid and NaOH pulping procedures for isolation of cellulose and pulp from rice straw were studied. The pulping processes arc aim to remove as much hgnin and penlosanes as possible and avoid the decomposition of cellulose during the process. The most common pulping in industries is NaOH pulping Chemically, cellulose is a linear natural polymer anhydroglucose units and paper is composed of cellulose fibers. Ligmn, which arc the combined glues that hold plant cells together, are undesirable in a finished paper product Results showed that formic acid pulping yielded 22.38 % w/w cellulose and 4 06 % w/w ligmn Besides that, with using NaOH pulping, the cellulose and ligmn contents arc 30 26 % w/w and 4.72 % w/w. The isolated cellulose and pulp samples were further characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) to investigate their fiber dimensions. For formic acid pulping, the fibrous structures of isolated pulp samples display stronger binding fibres compared (o the NaOH pulping.