Comparative Investigation on the properties of Soda and Soda-Ethanol pulps from three hardwoods

Strength properties and the yield of soda and soda-ethanol pulps produced using hornbeam, beech and poplar woods were investigated. Soda pulps were produced applying 20% active alkali and the soda-ethanol pulps were made using 10% active alkali and 50% ethanol. The pulping temperature was constant at 175 C and the soda pulping time was selected at 120 minutes and the soda-ethanol pulping times were 120 and 180 minutes. The highest accepted pulping yield at 58.54% was reached using soda pulping on poplar wood and the lowest yield (49.29%) was related to soda-ethanol pulp produced from beech wood applying 180 minutes pulping time. The accepted yield of soda-ethanol pulping was low, but the kappa numbers of these pulps were almost 20 units lower than soda pulps. The strength properties of soda-ethanol pulps were superior to soda pulps and the difference was statistically significant at 99% confidence level. The results of this study indicated that the delignification of soda-ethanol pulping process is faster than soda pulping from the selected hardwoods especially poplar wood.