Manufacture of specialty paper with hemp bast fiber cultivated in Korea (Part 1) Characteristics of hemp-wood paper by soda pulping

To conserve wood resources for papermaking, chemical compositions of the hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) bast fiber cultivated in Korea such as holocellulose, a-cellulose, lignin, alcohol-benzene extractives, hot and cold water extractives, and ash contents were investigated to manufacture the specialty packaging paper effectively. Significantly very low klason lignin content of 3.3% was accomplished by removing of the outer shell of bark. Laboratory soda pulping method which is very useful for the nonwood fiber was adapted, and it was found that there was no significant difference in both kappa number and H-factor between 25% and 30% NaOH charge. Hemp pulp cooked with the laboratory digester in 25% NaOH at 170 °C were mixed together with the wood pulp(NBKP:LBKP=l : 1) in order to find the optimum mixture ratio which exhibited acceptable paper strength properties such as tensile index, burst index, and tear strength. When 10% of hemp soda pulps was mixed with 90% of wood pulps comprised of SwBKP and HwBKP (1:1), all physical strength increased significantly. The physical strength decreased as the amount of hemp pulp increased because the cell wall of bast fiber is very thick which causes low conformability and low fiber-fiber bonding. These results showed that paper made of hemp-wood pulp can be used for the specialty packaging paper which requires both the characteristic surface properties and the high physical strength of hemp fiber.