Potential of Using Sugarcane Leaves to Produce Pulp for Paper Making

Abstract

Ekael Mbise, Issa said, Rwaichi JA Minja

The search for alternative fiber sources among which non-wood materials have found wide application in pulp and paper production. Sugarcane leaves can be among non-wood sources for papermaking. Tanzania has a lot of sugarcane leaves, which are burned during harvesting period in sugar industries. Therefore, this study aimed at investigating the Potential of using sugarcane leaves to produce pulp for papermaking. This will lead to reduced wood consumption as well as minimization of global warming impact resulting from CO2 emissions as a result of burning of sugarcane fields before harvesting. Pulping of sugarcane leaves was achieved through chemical pulping method (Soda pulping) with two different effective alkali charges (EA-12% and EA-18%) and the pulp obtained were tested for their Kappa number (33.9, 20.9), Pulp yield (35.8%, 27.2%), and Freeness (520CSF and 490CSF). The resulting pulp was used for hand sheet making and the papers obtained were tested for their mechanical properties; Grammage (58.5, 59.4) g/m2, Tensile index (30.5, 41.1) Nm/g, Tear index (9.4, 9.5) Nm2/g, burst index (3.3, 4.7) k.pa.m2/g and Elongation at break (2.57, 2.75) %, for papers made from sugarcane leaves pulp with two different treatments respectively. The overall results showed that Tanzanian sugarcane leaves has a promising potential as alternatives fibers for pulp and paper making industry

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