Non-wood fibers as raw material for pulp and paper industry

Abstract

Pulp and paper industry in the world have been growing fast. As a result, there has been a massive request for pulp and paper raw materials. The raw materials used in papermaking can be classified into three groups: Wood, non-wood, and recycled wastepaper. The Non-wood raw material is an important fiber resource in the regions where forest resources are limited. The current usage of non-wood plant fibers, as rice straws, corn stalks, cotton stalks, and bagasse would play a chief role in increasing papermaking raw materials. Using of non-wood plant fibers in the paper industry associated with some problems, including collection, transportation, storage and handling, washing, bleaching, papermaking, chemical recovery, supply of raw material and the properties of finished paper. Recently, a high-tech innovation in all the fields of papermaking has made non-wood more reasonable with wood as a raw material for papermaking. Although till now, use of non-wood fibers for pulp and paper manufacture was focused in countries with limited wood supply, it is now showing a growing effort even in countries with acceptable wood source due to environmental concerns. Consequently, the future of non-wood plant fibers as pulping and papermaking raw material looks bright.