The Production of Eco-Friendly and High-Quality Paper, and an Alternative to Coal from Eichhornia Plant and Testing Their Physical and Chemical Properties Respectively

Abstract

Eichhornia, a rapidly regenerating aquatic plant from the Nile River. Its leaves contain 53.45% cellulose, 24.43% lignin, and 22.12% hemicellulose (Smith et al., 2020) — values comparable to those found in wood fibers: 25%lignin and 25%-35% hemicellulose(General compositions of softwoods and hardwoods and their lignin linkages, n.d.) both Eichhornia plant and wood share similar composition. Due to its high cellulose content it is suggested that the plant could be a viable alternative raw material for wood in the paper industry in Egypt. In this study, stalks were processed via a 10% KOH pulping method at 100–120°C to extract cellulose, followed by a 10% NaOCl bleaching step to obtain white pulp. Paper sheets (1 cm × 5 cm) produced from this pulp showed a high rigidity and a high ductility such as commercial paper and exhibited a maximum stress of 0.37500 MPa, strain of 0.28000%, force of 1.87500 N, displacement of 0.11200 mm, and a gauge length of 40.0000 mm. Additionally, mixing the remaining roots with dark liquor produced as a by-product in the pulping process in a 6:1 ratio yielded mixture. This mixture is used to make tablets which can be an alternative source of energy instead of coal in low-temperature heating applications such as space heating in well-insulated buildings. In addition, the benefit from these by-products and wastes contributes to sustainability and preserving the environment from harmful wastes. The tablets’ heat of combustion was measured by Oxygen bomb calorimeter and was approximately 9.18 MJ/Kg.These results indicate that using Eichhornia not only produces paper with competitive mechanical properties relative to commercial wood-based paper in tensile strength, strain and deformation, provide an alternative source of energy but also offers a sustainable approach by making an advantage of this environmentally and economically harmful plant.

Keywords: Eichhornia, cellulose fibers, dark liquor, paper and heat of combustion