Fundamental Properties of Rice Straw in comparison with

Softwoods
Matthew D. Summers
December 21, 2000

For the requirements of ESPM 286: Physical Properties of Wood,

Professor Frank Beall

Abstract

This paper explores the literature for information on some fundamental properties of rice
straw to provide a basis for understanding how it performs as an engineered material.
Some existing and proposed enterprises use straw as the raw material for production of
particleboard, medium density fiberboard, oriented straw strand board and some types of
low-density panels. Since softwood is the standard material for many of these products,
rice straw properties are compared with those of softwood. Moisture, density, and
structural analysis receive the main focus, as they are critical to the derivation of other
properties. Methodology and experiments for exploring areas lacking in information are
proposed. Critical property issues facing the straw-based board industry are identified
based on the fundamental properties.

Keywords: Rice straw, physical properties, biomass, moisture, density

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Introduction

Several socio-ecological issues have increased the focus on off-field utilization of

agricultural wastes. These include a desire to reduce of air pollution from open-field
burning, an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and a perceived scarcity in the fuel
and fiber sectors stimulating the search for local, economical sources of raw material. In
California, open-burn reduction legislation has put pressure on rice industry to find
alternatives for straw waste, nearly 1.5 million tons per year. This has increased the
economic risk to the rice grower with the additional cost of straw incorporation and the
potential for weed and disease problems. Off-field utilization of the straw provides a
potentially attractive alternative for straw disposal but its use remains limited. Several
technologies have been developed that use rice straw in place of softwood to produce
building materials. However, performance of rice straw composites is uncertain without
information on the fundamental properties of the raw material. This purpose of this paper
is to reveal some of those properties from literature and how they might effect straw-
based products.

Rice straw production ventures are not a new thing in California. In the 1970’s there
were several processes that use unmilled rice straw to produce “Stramit” panels with
100% straw or straw sandwiched between two plywood panels. These enterprises have
not survived into maturity. Currently there are ventures proposing to use similar
processes to provide lightweight insulating panels. There is also a fiberboard plant in
Colusa that uses rice straw to produce particleboard. The process uses hammer-milled
rice straw mixed with MDI resin and to produce boards in a batch press. They are
currently working to reach full production at which they will use 40,000 tons of straw per
year. Another venture that is proceeding will fiberize rice straw using a wet-mill process
and mix it with MDI resin to produce medium density fiberboard in a continuous press.
This process will use over 200,000 tons of rice straw at full production. Other processes
are still in the research and development stage like oriented straw strand board that has
been developed by the Alberta Research Council in Canada. To better inform all these
efforts and ward off

Fundamental Properties

Moisture and Sorption

Many properties of wood-based materials are based on the amount of moisture in the
wood. The same would apply to straw-based materials. Dimensional stability, fluid
diffusion, permeability, thermal, electrical and mechanical properties are all influenced
by the moisture content of the material. Green moisture content for softwood species is
around 120 to 160% for sapwood and 50 to 90% in heartwood (Beall 2000). When rice
straw is harvested its moisture content can range from 150% to 250% dry basis. It is
typically dried in the field to below 17% moisture content before baling to prevent
microbial activity during storage. It may be dried further during production depending on
process requirements.
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Sorption curves are a way to evaluate the steady state moisture content of the material as
effected by the environmental relative humidity. Once free water has been evaporated
from a material, the moisture adsorption and desorption of the material follows these
curves. For comparison a curve found in literature for rice straw (Thompson 1974) and a
generalized curve for softwoods (Beall 2000) are shown in Figure 1. The comparison
reveals that for all humidity levels rice straw has a higher equilibrium moisture content
(EMC) than softwood.

As the material approaches 100% humidity it reaches the fiber saturation point. This
point is a theoretical value at which the plant cell wall is fully saturated without any free
water in the lumens. This is an important value for drying because it is the point where
the material is no longer evaporating free water but is desorbing moisture from the cell
walls. It is also important because it defines the amount of swelling potential in the
material because volume increases with amount of sorbed water. Thompson estimated
fiber saturation point for rice straw at 42%. This is much higher than typical values for
softwoods that fall in the range of 26-30%.

45

40

35
Equilibrium Moisture (% dry matter)

30
Softwood Adsorption
Softwood Desorption
25
Rice Straw Adsorption
Rice Straw Desorption
20

15

10

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Relative Humidity (% )

Figure 1. A comparison of sorption curves for softwood (Beall 2000) and rice straw
(Thompson 1974) at 25°C.

It should be noted, however, that the straw used in Thompson’s study was somewhat
weathered with an undefined level of crushing from going through a harvester.
Weathering and other alteration of the material structure will effect EMC. In one study, a
sorption curve for wheat straw conformed much more closely to wood than Thompson’s
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study showed for rice straw (Duggal and Muir 1981). Before conclusions are drawn,
sorption curves for rice straw should be confirmed with using well-defined material and
procedures.

In general, it may not be valid to directly compare straw with solid wood because the
shape of the material also effects the resulting EMC. Because straw is thin-walled it may
be less constrained than wood in adsorption of water thus resulting in higher moisture
contents. A more valid comparison would be to test the final products made with both
materials. Processing wood into an engineered product changes EMC anyway as a
function of the resin and process (Beall 2000). The same could be expected for straw-
based products. The direct comparison of final product EMC for straw vs. wood was not
found in literature, but it would be an important part establishing the quality of straw-
based products.

Density

For solid wood, gross density is reasonably easy to characterize and a great deal of
previous work has established accepted values and effects of moisture content,
temperature, composition, etc. Gross density has been less explored for other biomass
materials perhaps, in part, due to the difficulty of quantifying gross volume for irregularly
shaped particles like straw. It is more common to see values for bulk or packing density
reported for these materials but this is dependent on processing. Bulk density includes
volume of biomass substance, total void volume, and interstitial volume between the
particles and is often dominated by the latter. Bulk density is useful for evaluating
packaging and storage techniques and some values are shown in Table 1. However, to
evaluate any production process that increases bulk density or assess other important
material properties, it is important to know gross density and substance density of the
material. This information is not as readily available.

Table 1. Densities of various storage forms of biomass. (Jenkins 1993)

Form Bulk Density
(kg/m3 dry basis)
Loose 20-40
Chopped 40-80
Bales 110-200
Moduled 96-128
Hammer milled 40-100
Cubed 320-640
Pelleted 560-720

Density of wood substance, ρws, is fairly established as 1530 kg/m3 with little variation
among wood species. The density of rice straw substance, ρrss , is not established in
literature but some techniques may be used to estimate it. An air comparison pycnometer
can be used to measure the gas volume displaced by the rice straw. However, this will
actually measure the cell wall volume and not the substance volume, as the gas will not
penetrate into cell wall micro-voids (Beall 2000). This would result in an underestimate
of ρrss. Air pycnometry suffers other uncertainties on a practical level. Kaup and Goss
(1981) used a second method for comparison with air pycnometry. They estimated
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substance density of rice straw hulls from the density of the elemental mass fractions.
The densities of hydrogen and oxygen were approximated as that of water, 1000 kg/m3.
The density for carbon in the amorphous form is 1800 to 2100 kg/m3. The other
elemental densities for this type of analysis can be found in a chemistry handbook. This
method does not account for the effects of chemical bonding on the elemental density but
it provides a ball park estimate and a means for comparison. Using this technique with
the major elemental components (>1% of total mass) for softwood, rice straw and rice
hulls the predicted substance densities are about 1490, 1600, and 1630 kg/m3 respectively
(Table 2). The technique slightly underpredicts ρws but it does show that the increased
amount of silica in rice straw and rice hulls and lower amounts of carbon, hydrogen and
oxygen are likely to increase substance density. It is probable that ρrss will be larger than
ρws due to the silica ash in the cellular structure, in the 1600-1650 kg/m3 range.

Table 2. Substance density for softwood, rice straw and rice hulls based on elemental
density analysis.

Elemental Analysis Predicted

C H O Si Other Substance
3
Elemental Density (kg/m ) 1950* 1000 1000 2320 2000** Density
(% by weight, dry basis) (kg/m3)
Type of Material
Softwood 50 6 43 0 1 1485
Rice Straw 42 5 37 12 4 1597
Rice Hulls 41 4 36 15 4 1628

*The density of amorphous carbon is between 1800-2100 kg/m3, a midpoint value is used
** For this analysis, all components comprising than 1% of the material were given an average density

Gross density for rice straw was also not found in the literature. However, Beall (2000)
discussed a technique that might be used for estimating it. The technique estimates the
density on a swollen volume basis without directly measuring the volume. A sample is
saturated with water and the void volume is assumed to be completely filled with water at
free water density (1000 kg/m3). Under these assumptions, the sorbed volume, Vs, would
be a combination of rice straw substance volume, Vrss, and the volume of water added,
Vw. By dividing by the oven-dry mass, the sorbed density, ρs, can be found from the
following relationship:

ρs = 103/[(103/ρrss )+ um], (1)

where um = maximum moisture content of the saturated sample.

Two error sources for the procedure are incomplete filling and extraction of water-soluble
substances. Gasses trapped in the sample or volume that is otherwise inaccessible will
reduce um resulting in an overestimate of ρs. Extraction would reduce oven dry mass and
increase um by replacing water-soluble elements with water. This would result in
underestimate of ρs. This might be compensated for with careful attention to leaching
during measurements. In Jenkins etal. (1995) it was found that soaking rice straw
resulted in removal of potassium, sodium and chlorine from the ash with a total ash
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reduction of 10%. Total loss in mass during rinsing was about 3%. If these losses are
accounted for by monitoring of the leachate then um can be adjusted appropriately.

No direct measurement of um was found in literature but this reference was found in one
study on field drying of rice straw:

“The moisture content record…showed that the maximum amount of free moisture that
could be held by the straw was 150% of the dry weight. Moisture above this level could
not be held by the straw and would run off…” (Thompson 1974)

The same study estimated the fiber saturation point of straw to be near 40%. Combining
the two pieces of information would make um = 1.9. Using equation 1 above and
assuming ρrss is in the 1600 to 1650 kg/m3 range results in a ρs = 390 to 400 kg/m3. This
is an encouraging result and is remarkably close to the green density of common
softwood species. This analysis should be repeated in a controlled setting because the
numbers from this study seem rough and the technique was not well defined. Two
standard procedures use the above method for measuring swollen density of wood chips,
ASTM D2395-93 and TAPPI T18 OS-53. These methods can be adapted for analyzing
rice straw and other types of biomass.

Structural Composition

The elemental composition of rice straw as compared with softwoods was discussed
briefly in the density section. From an elemental standpoint, the main difference is a
higher amount of ash and lower amounts of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen in rice straw.
This information alone does not describe the chemical form of these elements and the
cellular fiber structure in the plant.

Structural analysis describes the relative amounts of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin and
extractives in the plant. A comparison of these elements is shown in Table 3. Rice straw
is characterized by lower amounts of cellulose and lignin and higher amounts of
extractives. The somewhat lower amount of cellulose and much lower amount of lignin
suggest that the cell wall makeup of rice straw may be quite different than that of
softwood. This will have an effect of properties and should be investigated further.

Perhaps more significant for the utilization of rice straw is the amount of extractives
present. Ash content is very high relative to wood and this is primarily made up of silica,
75-80%. Silica is contained in “pocket” cells within the cellular structure (Jenkins 1995).
Hot water soluble extractives for rice straw are also high and this may includes some
components of ash, waxes, chlorophyll, and other plant constituents.
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Table 3. Structural composition of rice straw as compared with softwoods.

Structural (% dry matter) Extractives (% dry matter)

Cellulose Hemicellulose Lignin Ash Hot Water
Soluble
Material
Rice Straw 30-35% 25-30% 8-12% 12-20% 13-17%
Softwoods 40-45% 20-25% 26-35% >1% 2-6%

Data from various sources: Rowell 1997, Jenkins 1993, Juliano 1985

Fiber size and aspect ratio are also important factors for deriving properties. Rice straw
fibers have diameters from 5 to 14 um (av. 8 um) with lengths from 0.65 to 3.48 mm (av.
1.4 mm) giving an average aspect ratio of 170 (Rowell 1997). For softwoods typical
fiber dimensions are diameter of 50 um and length of 3 mm giving an aspect ratio of 60
(Beall 2000). Although the rice straw cells are smaller than softwood cells they have
more favorable aspect ratios. The aspect ratio is important in determining the strength of
the raw fiber. There is potential to take advantage of this internal strength if some of the
problematic parts of rice straw structure can be overcome.

Conclusions

Clearly there are some areas where more information would be useful for determining the
suitability of rice straw for board production applications. The first area identified in this
report is in the sorption properties of the material. Data (unverified) from literature
suggests there could be a potential problem with shrinkage and swelling in rice straw
composites. This should be investigated by corroborating the literature and/or conducting
sorption experiments with comparable products made from wood and straw. The second
property that should be further developed is gross and substance density for rice straw.
Some simple experiments and methodology were proposed in this paper to better define
these densities. Finally, the effects of the structural properties of rice straw on other
derived properties should be further explored. This area has the most distinct differences
between wood and rice straw and, thus, presents a gray area of potential “show stoppers”
for developers. For example, does reduced cellulose in rice straw create a reduced
strength raw material? Does a high silica content reduce machinability and increase tool
wear for a rice straw product? Will other extractives like waxes prevent good bonding
for composite products made from straw? An informed approach to product design using
rice straw should address these property issues first.
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References

Beall, F.C. 2000. ESPM 286: Physical Properties of Wood. Unpublished Class Notes. Forest Products
Laboratory, University of California.

Dobie, J.B. and A. Haq. 1980. “Outside Storage of Baled Rice Straw.” Transactions of the ASAE 23(4):
990-993.

Duggal, A.K. and W.E. Muir, 1981. “Adsorption Equilibrium Moisture Content of Wheat Straw.” J. Agric.
Engr. Res. 26: 315-320.

Jenkins, B.M. 1993. “Properties of biomass.” In Biomass Energy Fundamentals, EPRI TR-102107,
Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, California.

Jenkins, B.M., R.R. Bakker and J.B. Wei. 1995. “On the Properties of Washed Straw.” Biomass and
Bioenergy 10(4): 177-200.

Juliano, B.O. (ed). 1985. Rice: Chemistry and Technology. American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc.,
St. Paul MN.

Kaupp, A. and J.R. Goss. 1981. “Technical and Economical Propblems in the Gasification of Rice
Hulls—Physical and Chemical Properties.” Energy in Agriculture 1(3): 201-234.

Rowell, R.M., R.A. Young, J.K. Rowell (eds.). 1997. Paper and Composites from Agro-Based Resources.
CRC Press, Inc. New York.

Thompson, J.F. 1974. Field Drying of Rice Straw. Unpublished M.S. Thesis. University of California,
Davis.