(276e) Eco- Friendly Utilization of Hazardous Pine Needle Waste for the Production of Paper

Ever increasing demand of fibrous raw material for pulp production has affected the natural eco-system resulting environmental degradation due to deforestation in countries like India. It is therefore, an imperative necessaity that utmost attention should be given to utilization of forest wastes,agricultural residues/wastes ,and non-wood fibrous materials for the production of high yield pulp using latest technology, which will help in reducing the environmental pollution. Pine needles, leaves of pine, having 68.5% hollocellulose, 4.56% extractives and 31.0% lignin can be a good raw material for paper making. The commercial utilization of dry pine needle shall check pollution on one hand and safety of the Forest wealth on the other. Since the raw material is very new and no comparison are available to evaluate the results, in this paper an attempt has been made to evaluate the potential of pine needle for pulp production. For this a statistical model has been developed to predict the yield and kappa number through statistical experimental design. The best pulping results were obtained at 18% chemical dose, 160oC cooking temperature and time of 4 hours. The screen yield was in the range of 28.02% to 46.65% which is comparable to other non wood based raw materials. Based on pulping experimental results,multivariable linear regression equation is developed to examine the effect of variables on pulp properties, like kappa number and yield.