UTILIZATION OF BANANA FIBERS FOR MAKING WARPPING PAPER

Abstract

Today banana stem is used as a source of raw material for preparation of a pulp and paper. Currently, the dependency of mankind on paper has grown to larger extent because of its wide applications in our day to day activities.Pulp is a lignocellulose fibrous material prepared by chemically or mechanically separating cellulose fibers from wood, fiber crops (banana stem, wheat straw...etc), wastepaper. While Paper can be defined as the crossing network of cellulose fibers bonded to each other. Wood is the primary raw material used to manufacture pulp and paper. But it causes deforestation, so we choosing other alternatives like banana tree waste is the best solution. The reason behind the selection of banana tree waste as raw material is, in banana plantations, after the fruits are harvested, the trunks or stems will be wasted. Billion tons of stem and leaves are thrown away annually. Therefore, it makes sense to turn such waste into a useful product like pulp by using the concept “from waste to wealth”. The general objective of this project was to produce pulp and wrapping paper from banana tree waste by using Kraft process. In this thesis we have read and observed different Experiments conducted by professionals. The experiments were done in many trial for comparison of the two basic pulping methods i.e. Kraft and soda pulping. The reason to use the Kraft process is that the pulp obtained in Kraft process was less dark in color than pulp obtained in soda process and it was understood that the pulp obtained in Kraft process contain less lignin content in it due to strong basic nature of the solution which break the lignin effectively. The pulp and wrapping paper production was obtained from banana stem waste by preparation of raw material, debarking, chopping /cutting, digestion, mixing, washing, screening ,paper, making (pressing and Molding) then drying. The pulp and paper production from banana stem was carried out by using stage wise equipment’s. We were considering some parameters on the production of pulp like time, concentration of cooking liquor. The optimum production of pulp was 72.25% at 13.5% white liquor concentration for the cooking time of 4:30 hours, but the maximum mass of pulp was 72.25% at the cooking time of 4:30 minutes with 13.5% white liquor concentration and the minimum mass was obtained 52.5% at minimum concentration (12.5%) and minimum time (5 hour).