EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Paper is a fundamental part of most aspects of society; worldwide a total of approximately 300million tons of paper are produced each day and approximately 90% of this paper is produced from mature pulp wood(Mccloskey et al, 1995). In addition the demand for paper is expected to be on increase due to continuous  increase in world population. This increasingly world demand for paper has led to an excess deforestation in both developed and developing countries which has altered the ecological balance and contributed to climate change. Heightened concerns on increasing wood consumption and raw material availability for the paper industry have resulted in a renewed attention on the benefits inherent in several non-wood fibre plants, with annual or biannual harvests (JorgeGominhoet al. 2001). Due to environmental considerations and protection of forest lands, studies considering alternative materials for papermaking are becoming more important. There is strong interest in non-wood plants like Kenaf and agricultural waste as alternative raw materials for paper production. Non-wood plants and agricultural wastes offer several advantages which include short growth cycles, low lignin content to alleviate energy and chemical consumption during pulping (Hurter et al. 1998).

The results of the chemical analysis of the agro-waste materials studied show that cellulose, which is the major chemical component of fibre wall make up between 45% to 55% in the various materials studied. Low lignin content was also observed among the agro-wastes materials studied. Several non-wood materials such as wheat straw, sorghum stalks and oak straw have also been reported to contain ≤ 20% lignin (Manfred, 1993). Paper quality is normally affected by the fibre properties of the raw material. Papers produced from short fibres have low mechanical strength and tearing resistance (Ververis et al. 2004).Fibre length of various agro-waste studied falls within the range of medium to longfibres(1.71mm to 3.5mm). Other dimensional indices, i.e. runkel ratio, flexibility coefficient, slenderness ratio and wall rigidity gave a good insight into the qualities of the individual fibres present in the material. The mechanical and strength properties of paper reflect the intrinsic chemistry, morphology, and structure of the individual fibres as well as the network structure of the paper (Caulfield and Gunderson, 1988). Test of tensile strength was done on the paper samples obtained from pulp of individual materials, the result shows that these agro-wastes could be considered as a promising raw material for papermaking applications. Despite the fact that this study presented relatively poor flexibility and runkel ratio in some of the materials, pulps produced from such materials can be mixed with softwood, hardwood or recycled paper pulps to produce paper with increased printability, tearing strength and mechanical strength.