SUITABILITY OF LOCALLY PLANTED KENAF FOR PULP AND PAPER APPLICATIONS

摘要

The fibre morphology, chemical components and pulp and paper properties of locally planted Kenaf (Hibiscus cannabininus) is presented in this paper. Kenaf of Khon Kaen variety cultivated in Sabak Bernam, Selangor was explored for the characteristics of both bast and core fibres. The whole stem contained 27% bast and 73% core fibres by weight. The length of bast fibres was found to be more than twice that of the core fibres (2.24mm vs. 0.89 mm). The chemical analysis revealed that the kenaf core fibres contained more holocellulose (78.3% vs. 74.3%), lignin (20.4% vs. 14.2%) and pentosan (21.2% vs. 15.6%) compared to bast fibres. Kraft pulping process was conducted on three types of kenaf fibres; the bast, core and whole stem. Kraft pulping at 15% active alkali produced screened yield between 34.0% and 45.4% for the different fibres with Kappa number between 23 and 29.7. At the same level of freeness, the core fibres were found to be superior in term of tensile strength (81.5 vs. 81.1 kNm/g) but weaker in tear and burst strengths (5.4 vs. 19.6 mNm~2/g and 4.5 vs. 5.3 kPa m~2/g) when compared against bast fibres. The whole stem fibres, on the other hand, showed strength values between both core and bast fibres.