Durable paper is necessary for the production of paper bags. Even though there is enough wood available in Europe, the technology of acquiring cellulose fibre from annual plants is also being developed. Advantages of annual plants are easier delignification, lower water consumption and the use of farming by-products, that would otherwise have to be disposed of in some other way. Disadvantages of obtaining cellulose from annual plant fibre is mostly the plants’ availability in only certain part of the year, which necessitates large storage capabilities.
We compared three types of paper that are produced in Europe and used for paper bag production. The first sample of paper contained only primary wood cellulose fibre, the second sample contained fibre from grass, wood and secondary fibre, and the third sample contained fibre from fallen leaves and secondary cellulose.
Comparing physical-mechanical properties (tear strength, burst strength, tensile strength, sound wave propagation velocity) we wanted to determine whether paper made from annual plant fibre can replace the paper from wood cellulose in the production of paper bags. We presumed that the paper from wood cellulose would be more resilient than others because the fibres from wood are longer and thus improve the mechanical strength of paper. We confirmed this hypothesis since the paper from primary wood cellulose achieved better results in every measurement apart from tear strength, where paper from grass and wood fibre performed better. The paper that had no wood cellulose content performed the worst out of all three.
Even though the production of paper from annual plant fibre is a welcome innovation, it unfortunately cannot replace wood cellulose paper yet.
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