Mechanical properties of beating pulp and paper from rice straw

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of beating on rice straw pulp and paper properties. The rice straw pulps were produced from pulping process using chemi-mechanical pulping (CMP) method and then were beaten. Pulp produced with and without beating was evaluated for apparent density and freeness. The beaten pulp showed significantly better apparent density and freeness than unbeaten pulp. The apparent density of beaten and unbeaten pulps was 0.74 g/cm^3 and 0.69 g/cm^3 respectively, while the freeness of beaten and unbeaten pulps was 250 ml and 415 ml respectively. The paper from beaten pulp showed significantly better mechanical properties, whereby the tensile index is at 79.57 Nm/g, burst index at 5.70 kPa.m^2, tear index at 4.17 mNm^2/g and folding endurance at 508, whereas, the unbeaten paper is at 67.28 Nm/g, 4.98 kPa.m^2, 3.28 mNm^2/g and 195 respectively. The optical behaviour such as opacity and brightness of paper from beaten and unbeaten pulps showed no significant values. The opacity and brightness of paper for beaten pulp were 99.81% and 32.44% respectively, while the paper using unbeaten pulp were 99.88% for opacity and 33.58% for brightness.